A  Cosmic  View  of  Religion 


WILLIAM  RILEY  HALSTEAD 


WILLIAM  RILEY  HALSTEAD 


(Emctttmtit:: 
JENNINGS     AND     GRAHAM 


EATON    AND     MAINS 


COPYRIGHT.  1913, 
BY  JENNINGS  AND  GBAHAM. 


CHAPTER   CONTENTS. 
PART  I. 

PAGE 

I.     PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS,          -  11 

II.     THE  ULTIMATE  KNOWABLE  REALITY,  44 

III.  MIND — A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE,  76 

IV.  PSYCHIC  VALUES,  -  91 
V.     THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE,                   *  113 

VI.     CONTRIBUTIONS    OF    NATURAL    RE- 
SEARCH, -  134 
VII.     NAKED  NATURE,       -                          -  142 
VIII.     PLEASURE  AND  PAIN,    -  154 
IX.     ENDLESSNESS,  -                                   -  179 

PART  II. 

X.    THE  SUPERMOVEMENT,  -  217 

XI.     RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE,  232 

XII.     THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE,     -  246 

XIII.  THE  EASTERN  MIND,                           -  254 

XIV.  THE  COSMIC  CHRIST,  267 
XV.     PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS,        -  282 

XVI.     A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY,  -  309 


2064047 


FOREWORD. 

THESE  pages  undertake  to  deal  with  religion  in 
its  generic  aspects,  and  from  the  side  of  the  uni- 
verse. The  religious  instinct  is  such  a  persistent 
radical,  and  so  evidently  here  to  stay,  that  the 
whole  issue  of  the  soul's  fellowship  with  the  Di- 
vine may  be  investigated  from  the  viewpoint  of 
the  unity  of  creation.  If  man  has  come  up  out  of 
things,  he  will  not,  in  the  long  run,  be  largely 
influenced  by  any  theory  of  detachment.  The 
better  understandings,  therefore,  of  what  this 
human  is,  in  his  inmost  being,  are  to  be  reached 
by  a  careful  estimate  of  his  permanent  outward 
correspondences,  and  of  his  actions  under  them, 
and  of  the  degree  of  mastery  which  they  have 
over  him. 

We  have  come  to  the  time  when  the  serious- 
minded  refuse  to  go  to  school  to  the  teacher  who 
has  to  have  himself  whipped  into  acceptance  of 
the  nature  truths  which  research  has  uncovered. 
So  great  and  unquestioned  have  been  the  recent 
advances  in  psychology,  in  chemistry,  in  physics, 
and  in  biology,  that  the  whole  quantum  of  human 

5 


FOREWORD. 

knowledge  seems  to  demand  a  synthetic  rehabili- 
tation. If  religious  thought  is  to  be  kept  en  rap- 
port with  these  newer  acquisitions,  some  of  its 
most  familiar  appeals  sorely  need  the  undergird- 
ing  of  a  class  of  evidences  which  set  themselves 
into  the  framework  of  things.  The  laboratories 
now  offer  to  furnish  the  elements  of  a  sound 
philosophy  of  religion;  and,  in  the  right  hands, 
they  will  be  able  to  make  good.  The  stronger 
scientific  currents  have  set  in  towards  the  con- 
ception of  the  spirit  nature  of  all  energy.  Un- 
expectedly, an  irreverent  and  long  search  after  the 
last  material  fact  has  brought  itself  face  to  face 
with  another  somewhat,  which  threatens  to  block 
progress  until  it  gets  scientific  recognition.  As 
might  be  expected,  tradition  is  out  of  sympathy 
with  this  new  method  of  approach  to  the  invisible 
— if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  has  upset 
the  ark  and  gone  around  to  see  what  is  on  the 
other  side.  But  while  the  fearful-minded  are  in 
distress,  the  foundations  are  being  strengthened. 
For  instance — thirty  years  ago  a  great  scholar 
wrote  three  hundred  pages  to  show  that  worship 
had  its  beginnings  in  the  dreams  and  fears  of 
savage  men.  The  purpose  of  that  writing  makes 
of  it  a  grotesque  story.  But  since  it  has  had  a 

6 


FOREWORD. 

new  evaluation,  and  has  been  historically  ges- 
tated,  it  is  now  classified  as  an  indubitable  evi- 
dence of  the  cosmic  Footings  of  religion.  It  proves 
a  fundamental  world  fact. 

The  term  spirit  is  here  understood  to  be  di- 
vested of  much  of  its  common  meanings — pulled 
up  from  some  of  its  root  inheritances — philolog- 
ically  washed  and  scoured,  and  made  to  signify 
an  all-pervasive,  causative  intelligence;  never  di- 
vorced from  the  forms  of  matter;  but  manifest 
through  phenomena,  in  terms  of  positive  knowl- 
edge. W.  R.  HALSTEAD. 

Terre  Haute,  Ind. 


PART  I. 


CHAPTER  I. 
PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

THE  natural  introduction  to  any  discussion  of 
first  principles  is  a  statement  of  the  terms  of 
knowledge.  Any  writer  on  such  themes  is  con- 
stantly making  appeals  to  methods  which  he  con- 
siders valid;  and  it  is  well  for  the  reader  to  get 
these  and  know  the  writer's  viewpoint.  It  clears 
the  ground  and  saves  time.  Unless  the  processes 
of  the  human  mind  are  brought  to  some  unity  of 
understanding,  there  is  no  protection  against  any 
sort  of  fanatical  notion  or  interpretation.  Knowl- 
edge is  the  truth  perceived.  It  is  the  veritas 
cognitionis.  The  mind  produces  knowledge  as  the 
bee  produces  honey.  The  mind  feeds  and  grows 
on  its  knowledge  as  the  bee  on  its  honey.  That 
fact  may  be  the  open  highway  to  endless  being. 
At  any  rate,  the  truth  apprehended  is  mandatory. 
We  are  never  negatively  related  to  any  feature  of 
it,  and  we  are  not  authorized  to  pick  out  a  piece 
and  go  with  it,  as  a  boy  does  with  his  bread  and 
butter.  A  man  can  not  refuse  to  know  a  thing 

11 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

because  it  will  not  fatten  his  swine.  The  truth  is 
not  our  servant — it  is  our  destiny.  All  the  mean- 
ings and.  consequences  of  human  action  depend  on 
what  the  world  is,  and  what  man  is.  Life  must 
get  its  character  from  the  knowledge  it  has  of  the 
great  realities  which  hedge  it  about.  In  a  world 
of  so  vast  and  varied  need  as  this,  knowable 
things,  even  of  a  primary  nature,  are  not  unprac- 
tical. The  spirit  of  man  is  enriched  only  as  it 
interprets  rationally  the  truths  which  have  been 
put  within  its  reach.  Is  it  not  worth  while  to 
search  patiently  for  that  to  which  we  must  sur- 
render finally?  There  can  be  no  compromise  with 
the  inner  life  of  the  world  and  the  universe  beyond 
it.  The  yearning  to  apprehend  the  real  is  uni- 
versal. The  common  man  quickly  loses  interest 
in  the  leisured  student  of  abstraction  who  goes 
off  into  the  fog  and  gets  lost,  but  he  never  ceases 
to  make  the  compelling  inquiry  about  the  main 
issue.  "What  kind  of  a  world  is  this,  and  what 
am  I,  that  I  should  fit  into  it  in  this  way  ?  "  Sekese, 
the  savage  Kaffir,  said  to  M.  Ambrouseille:  "I 
sat  down  upon  a  rock  and  asked  myself  sorrowful 
questions.  I  can  not  see  the  wind,  but  what  is  it? 
Who  brings  it,  makes  it  blow,  and  roar,  and 

12 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

terrify  me?  Do  I  know  how  the  corn  sprouts? 
Yesterday  there  was  not  a  blade  in  my  field; 
to-day  I  returned  and  found  some.  Who  can 
have  given  to  the  earth  the  wisdom  and  the  power 
to  produce  it?  Then  I  buried  my  head  in  both 
my  hands." 

The  savage  daily  walks  along  the  edges  of  an 
invisible  realm  and  becomes  a  perplexed  ques- 
tioner of  the  inner  meaning  of  things.  Whatever 
it  is  that  launches  him  into  being  without  his 
knowledge  or  consent,  and  lashes  him,  perhaps, 
with  an  untoward  life,  and  takes  him  hence  against 
his  will,  is  no  small  affair  to  him.  He  may  not  suf- 
fer in  his  own  state  as  keenly  as  the  cultured  man 
would  under  like  circumstances,  and  he  may  not 
take  any  time  off  to  think  about  it,  but  he  is 
oppressed,  nevertheless,  with  the  dull  feeling  that 
at  the  bottom  of  his  wild,  rude  state  there  exists 
a  tremendous  somewhat,  which  moves  over  about 
him,  and  underneath  him,  in  a  manner  at  times 
to  put  into  him  a  nameless  dread,  and  he  bows 
down  and  propitiates.  He  crouches  because  he 
is  haunted  by  his  fears,  being  ignorant.  The  issue 
with  this  low  man  is  knowledge.  The  issue  with 
the  race  is  knowledge. 

13 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 
Space  and  Time. 

There  are  three  outer  conditions  for  the  human 
mind  in  its  pursuit  of  truth  which  are  so  nearly 
axiomatic  in  their  nature  as  to  need  only  a  brief 
statement  to  be  accepted.  First,  there  must  be 
a  place  to  put  things — which  is  space.  Second, 
there  must  be  a  now  and  a  then — which  is  time. 
These  truths  are  usually  classed  with  our  most 
primary  apprehensions.  They  are  truths  of  con- 
dition— not  of  matter  or  substance.  Being  es- 
sential, they  have  their  ground  in  necessity.  They 
are  universals.  They  are  the  home  of  being,  the 
substrate  and  undergirding  of  reality.  In  the 
forms  of  matter  everywhere,  and  in  the  action  of 
mind,  they  are  so  clearly  elements  of  the  first 
instance  that  any  prolonged  discussion  of  them 
is  needless  in  these  pages. 

Connectedness. 

The  other  outer  condition  of  knowledge  is  con- 
nectedness. The  possibility  of  knowledge  hinges 
on  the  question  of  continuity  or  discontinuity  in 
nature.  A  disconnected  natural  system  could  not 
furnish  the  conditions  of  knowledge.  Unity  and 
continuity  must  be  at  the  bottom  of  things  if  the 
mind  has  any  hope  to  win  understandings. 

14 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

We  do  not  live  in  a  disjointed  universe.  No 
stray  worlds.  No  stray  atoms.  The  law  of  the 
inverse  squares  is  active  through  all  the  spaces. 
Light,  heat,  and  electricity  are  only  different 
modes  of  motion.  Some  of  the  folks  in  the  science 
departments  are  now  making  a  pretty  good  case 
out  of  the  proposition  that  rhythm  is  the  master 
key  of  creation.  Knowledge  is  not  an  extracted 
part  of  anything.  Truth  never  breaks  connec- 
tion— is  never  static.  The  truth-getter  may  let 
go,  but  he  can  not  carry  off  anything.  That  is, 
he  may  empty  himself  to  the  verge  of  being  snuffed 
out,  but  he  can  not  create  an  independency.  To 
know  ever  so  little  is  to  have  attachment  to  the 
system.  Partial  knowledge  is  not  disaster.  It 
need  not  be  mixed  error.  It  may  be  wholly  true, 
measured  by  the  knowing  capacity.  It  may  be 
true  to  the  vision  of  one  mind  and  error  to  an- 
other. A  star  is  a  bright  speck  to  a  child,  but  that 
degree  would  not  work  well  in  an  astronomical 
formula.  Herein  lies  the  truth  of  pragmatism. 
The  rational  nature  of  a  limited  experience  is 
provided  for.  We  could  not,  if  we  would,  deal 
with  the  absolute  verities,  and  we  are  not  obliged. 
It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  mind  to  apprehend,  or  in 
the  nature  of  truth  to  be  apprehended  in  change- 

15 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

less  relations.  The  permanent  dynamic  of  a 
growing  mind  is  nextness — nextness.  It  makes 
advances.  It  discovers  error.  It  is  then  hin- 
dered and  disturbed.  It  goes  forward  again.  It 
comes  to  the  summit  of  a  series.  It  never  reaches 
the  actual  limit  above  or  below.  The  formal  in- 
tellect is  a  slow  learner.  It  has  to  stop  and  wait 
on  itself.  A  dragon-fly,  coming  up  out  of  the  ooze 
of  the  swamp,  climbs  a  bulrush  stalk  a  few 
inches  above  the  water,  and  then  halts  for  its  wings 
to  dry.  The  bounds  of  the  unknown  are  pushed 
away  only  as  our  mental  correspondences  are 
multiplied. 

The  limit  of  the  known  is  a  point  of  science — 
not  a  dead  line.  Newness  of  knowledge  is  the 
goal  of  research — and  that  means  relativity.  We 
can  not  see  across  the  ocean — we  start  across 
and  get  there.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  whole- 
ness of  things  need  come  up  at  any  time  for  study. 
We  go  forward  under  limitations.  The  propo- 
sition that  we  know  nothing  because  we  do  not 
know  everything  is  not  tenable.  The  standard  is 
the  capacity  to  perceive  and  use.  We  are  not  the 
masters  of  all  relationships  and  never  will  be.  A 
certain  existence  falls  within  a  certain  category 
and  has  certain  attributes  and  qualities  and  cer- 

16 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

tain  modes  of  activity  and  manifestation — all  of 
which  a  baby  knows  when  it  sucks  its  thumb. 

The  unconditioned  must  have  nothing  like  it 
or  nothing  different  from  it,  and  it  must  not  be 
subject  to  comparison  or  contrast.  Whoever  goes 
in  search  for  the  unconditioned  goes  gunning  for 
spooks.  The  mightiest  power  in  the  universe  is 
conditioned  by  its  grasp  and  control  of  every 
atom  in  it. 

Sensation  and  Reflection. 

So  much  for  the  outstanding  conditions;  but 
how  does  the  mind  itself  get  what  it  knows?  How 
does  it  know  that  it  knows?  Quite  a  while  ago, 
some  friends  with  Locke,  engaged  in  serious  dis- 
course, found  they  were  making  no  headway  be- 
cause they  were  at  sea  about  the  elements  which 
constituted  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of  anything. 
Locke,  thereupon,  sought  to  have  a  right  under- 
standing of  the  intellect  with  itself.  What  are  the 
ways  of  the  mind's  approach?  What  are  its 
processes  in  quest  of  verity?  What  are  the  in- 
ward avenues  to  the  outward  correspondences? 
How  may  the  mind  know  itself  to  be  making  sane 
and  successful  advances?  How  distinguish  the 
real  from  the  unreal?  Is  the  unreal  simply  an 
«  17 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

error  of  the  understanding?  How  may  it  be 
known  that  truth  is  disparate  with  error?  Is  it 
possible  to  strike  the  right  mental  attitude  and 
maintain  it  through  the  endless  mazes  of  sensa- 
tion and  thought  to  which  experience  subjects  the 
life? 

There  can  be  no  hard  and  fast  answers  to 
questions  like  these;  and  yet  there  can  be  no 
profitable  thinking  where  there  is  no  understand- 
ing about  the  primary  implications  of  thought. 
When  we  put  to  ourselves  these  deeper  questions 
we  are  under  the  necessity  of  some  sort  of  a  lining 
up  with  an  analytic  mental  perspective. 

So  it  comes  about  there  is  nothing  quite  so 
clear  in  the  pages  of  philosophy  as  Locke's  state- 
ment of  the  two  terms  of  knowledge  in  sensation 
and  reflection.  That  was  a  splendid  start  in  the 
direction  of  the  philosophic  certainties. 

A  child  begins  to  live  in  its  sensations.  The 
earth  is  motionless.  The  sky  and  the  ground 
come  together  not  very  far  away.  The  moon  is 
about  the  size  of  a  plate,  and  the  clouds  which 
float  over  its  face  are  about  half  way  out  there. 
We  all  begin  life  that  way.  We  are  at  first  con- 
fronted with  appearances.  We  learn,  after  a 
time,  that  appearance  and  reality  are  divergent 

18 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

terms.  Things  are  not  always  as  they  seem. 
Appearances  challenge  the  reflective  faculty.  It 
is  not  the  function  of  sensation  to  shut  down  the 
gates  against  anything.  The  outer  floods  rush  in 
and  they  fill  us  with  deception  and  delusion. 
Half  the  people  of  the  earth  to-day  are  in  bondage 
to  the  falsehoods  of  sense.  They  are  not  self- 
discriminating.  This  is  why  primitive  peoples 
are  so  sorely  smitten — why  they  are  oppressed 
with  the  vast  or  majestic  or  strange.  They  have 
not  ceased  to  follow  their  simple  reflexes. 

To  sort  out — to  put  like  with  like  and  difference 
over  against  difference,  to  consider  cause,  to 
distinguish  between  a  phenomenon  and  a  mani- 
festation— this  is  reflective.  Sensation  is  the 
purveyor  of  the  raw  material  of  truth,  and  after 
that  the  relation  of  it  to  the  knowledge  already 
in  possession  of  the  mind  must  come  up  for  settle- 
ment by  the  formal  reason.  It  is  clear  that  the 
discriminative  intellect  has  the  power  to  transcend 
the  direct  results  of  sensation  and  pass  judgment 
on  them,  and  demonstrate  in  itself  a  self-centered 
regal  capacity  for  distinguishing  between  the  real 
and  the  unreal.  The  reflective  nature  has  em- 
ployment in  any  true  experience.  The  broad 
and  direct  features  of  sensation  are  brought  into 

19 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

consistency  by  being  thrown  into  the  hopper  and 
ground  through.  We  get  the  grist,  and  not  the 
assortment,  by  reflection. 

Feeling. 

But  reflection,  considered  as  the  sufficient  and 
final  inward  source  and  avenue  of  knowledge,  leads 
to  misunderstanding  and  confusions.  The  con- 
scious action  of  the  intellect  does  not  include 
the  whole  of  the  mind's  work  in  the  acquisition  of 
truth.  Much  of  that  which  we  reliably  know  has 
come  to  us  in  an  unrealized  way. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  mere  formal 
intellectual  test  of  any  thing  is  not  always  suf- 
ficient. The  logical,  or  reasoning,  faculty  in  man 
is  notably  dull.  It  has  to  stare  at  things.  It  is 
lubberly.  A  boy,  usually,  requires  years  to  see 
the  value  of  the  multiplication  table.  It  has 
always  been  a  boaster  of  itself.  It  makes  too  much 
noise.  When  it  stoops  to  exercise  itself,  it  wants 
a  verdict  in  its  favor  without  delay.  And  yet  it 
is  obliged  to  shut  itself  up  to  the  circle  of  the 
given.  The  limits  of  knowledge  are  enlarged 
only  as  this  circle  is  broken  into.  So  the  intellect 
is  often  disturbed  by  the  storms  of  sensation  which 
beat  down  upon  it.  The  thinking  capacity  is 

20 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

but  a  part  of  man's  knowing  nature.  Two  per- 
sons, equally  intelligent,  and  equally  honest,  will 
have  daily  contradictions  of  the  reason.  Except 
in  the  region  of  the  exact  sciences,  it  is  very  rare 
to  find  two  minds  arriving  at  the  same  conclusion 
from  the  same  premises.  The  mere  logical  test  is 
not  a  finality,  and  it  is  not  of  universal  applica- 
tion. 

Read  Longfellow's  "Evangeline"  and  rule  out 
the  primitive  emotions  and  we  boggle  all  its  mean- 
ings. To  know  what  "Evangeline"  is  requires 
the  inward  capacity  to  see  human  life  swayed 
by  its  simplest  and  strongest  emotions. 

It  must  be  read  as  the  musicians  urge  us  to 
sing — with  feeling.  The  heart's  sympathies  must 
be  open  and  unafraid. 

It  is  certain,  therefore,  that  our  best  judg- 
ments are  not  always  the  products  of  the  logical 
understanding.  They  may  be  emotional  and 
temperamental,  or  the  results  of  a  long  expe- 
rience— the  phases  of  which  are  too  intricate  for 
analytic  interpretation.  Any  aged  man's  life  has 
taken  into  itself  so  many  events  and  so  many 
days  that  it  will  not  unravel  its  details  to  him — 
and  yet  he  speaks  from  the  ground  of  all  that  has 
transpired,  and  with  a  proverbial  level-headedness. 

21 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

There  is  a  feeling  of  the  truth  which  refuses  to 
come  within  the  limits  of  the  logical  faculty.  By 
feeling  we  do  not  mean  a  flash  of  emotion.  We 
mean  that  matured  sensibility  which  has  become 
a  part  of  the  whole  intellectual  nature.  We  may 
have  a  present  feeling  about  that  with  which 
reflection  has  heretofore  been  exercised.  The 
way  we  have  been  taught,  the  ideas  of  right  and 
wrong  we  have  entertained,  the  ideals  we  have 
pursued,  the  kind  of  life  we  have  lived,  the  sort 
of  people  we  have  had  as  associates,  the  di- 
rection of  the  flow  of  life's  currents,  and  pre- 
eminently our  necessities — all  these  enter  into  and 
help  determine  the  feelings  we  have  about  any 
occurrence.  Feeling  usually  voices  the  wholeness 
of  that  which  has  come  about  as  we  have  gone 
the  journey  of  the  days;  and,  in  this  sense,  it  must 
be  understood  to  be  the  directest  avenue  of  ap- 
proach of  the  human  spirit  to  the  spirit  nature 
of  all  being. 

A  balance  of  judgment,  as  a  function  of  the 
higher  cerebral  activities,  is  always  of  service; 
yet  the  right  of  the  emotional  nature  to  interpret 
itself  must  not  be  denied,  because  the  deep-seated 
elements  of  experience  are  in  it.  The  theory  of 
life  which  plain  people  have  is  always  best  ex- 

22 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

plained  to  themselves,  and  to  others,  through 
their  emotions — and  these  emotions  are  often  the 
finest  tests  of  character.  And  their  value  is  not 
to  be  set  aside  because  at  times  they  are  aberrant 
of  the  truth,  or  because  they  blur,  occasionally, 
the  finer  distinctions  of  ethics.  Feeling,  without 
question,  is  the  spring  of  action.  Cold  reason 
seldom  gets  further  than  the  immediate  facts  in 
the  case.  We  are  able  to  see  and  accept  an  ir- 
reversible conclusion  and  then  go  to  sleep  on  it. 
The  appeal  with  consequence  is  the  appeal  to 
feeling.  The  sober  judgment  of  the  Nation  about 
human  slavery  was  settled  long  before  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  wrote  her  dramatic  story  of  "  Uncle 
Tom"  and  his  cabin.  Japan  was  forty  years 
working  the  patriotism  of  her  people  into  a  pas- 
sion, and  the  passion  made  her  battalions  resistless. 
This  kind  of  associative  feeling  is  not  always 
able  to  give  an  account  of  itself,  because  the 
human  mind  is  too  dull  to  trace  the  social  con- 
sciousness to  its  origins.  Occasionally  social 
feeling  is  radical  and  violent,  and  on  the  surface 
it  may  appear  like  an  insanity,  but  in  its  final 
resolves  it  is  most  sure  to  show  itself  to  belong 
to  some  through  movement  which  has  in  it  the 
higher  reason. 

23 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

So  the  spontaneities  of  the  personal  life,  as 
tests  of  truth,  must  be  regarded  as  having  a 
positive  value. 

Belief. 

The  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  it 
refuses  to  stop  with  the  known.  The  impulse  and 
desire  to  reach  on  to  that  which  is  beyond  is 
natural.  Imaginations,  fancies,  expectations,  vi- 
sions are  the  prophets  of  the  mind.  Belief  has 
probably  as  much  influence  over  the  life  as  exact 
knowledge.  It  probably  holds  more  truth  for  us. 
It  is  rational  to  act  on  well-founded  belief.  It  is 
prudent  to  be  cautious;  but  to  refuse  to  come  to 
any  decision  or  action  until  certain  and  full  knowl- 
edge is  secured  is  a  distinct  mental  weakness. 
The  hesitant  mental  state  never  discovers  any- 
thing, never  invents  anything,  never  trusts  any 
seed  to  the  ground,  never  digs  precious  metals 
from  the  earth,  never  wakes  up  till  the  day  after 
judgment.  A  negative  attitude  toward  the  uni- 
verse is  disastrous.  We  can  have  certain  knowl- 
edge of  but  few  things  in  the  common  affairs  of 
life.  We  know,  for  instance,  that  the  physical 
life  is  nourished  by  food.  But  some  substances 
having  the  appearance  of  food  are  poisonous.  In 

24 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

taking  food  at  any  time  we  face  a  degree  of  danger, 
for  no  one  is  absolutely  sure.  We  believe  the  food 
we  take  is  not  poisonous.  Precaution  is  reason- 
able, but  constant  suspicion  is  not  so.  So,  in  the 
broader  ways  of  truth,  if  we  run  and  hide  when 
her  face  is  only  half-revealed,  we  miss  the  hand 
of  the  fair  one.  The  passionate  truth-seeker 
takes  risks.  Great  students  are  always  full  of 
faith.  They  have  imagination.  They  are  dream- 
ers. They  are  expectant. 

It  is  never  tenable  to  struggle  towards  belief 
without  evidence.  Belief,  as  a  bare  proposition, 
is  without  virtue  or  dignity.  To  try  to  believe  a 
thing  with  all  one's  might  is  silly.  It  does  vio- 
lence to  the  integrity  of  the  intellect.  Normal 
doubt  is  a  safeguard  against  error.  It  helps  the 
mind  to  escape  its  shallowness.  Level-headedness 
often  calls  a  halt  until  the  reflective  faculties  can 
catch  up  and  do  their  work  and  order  some  sane 
advance.  There  is  a  healthful  mental  reserve 
which  insists  on  the  last  ray  of  light.  But  after 
the  returns  are  in,  after  the  tests  have  been  ap- 
plied, after  all  the  facts  have  had  a  grilling,  the 
mind's  confidences  by  that  time  ought  to  be  so 
strengthened  that  it  would  not  fear  to  lift  itself 
toward  the  unresolved  mass  just  ahead  and  greet 

25 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

eagerly  the  first  glint  of  light  which  promises  any 
new  inbreaking  on  the  world  of  actual  experience. 
The  royal  learner  risks  a  prophecy  and  works  it 
for  all  it  is  worth.  It  is  a  great  mental  exhilara- 
tion to  live  on  the  frontiers  and  take  its  hazards. 
Suppose  you  hold  a  belief  which  is  without  par- 
ticular evidence  in  itself?  But  does  it  make 
good?  Is  it  in  the  center  of  progress  and  sound 
reform?  Does  it  produce  wholesome  conse- 
quences? Does  it  stand  the  pragmatic  test?  If 
so,  then  it  has  proved  its  right  to  live.  It  is  one 
of  the  world's  verities. 

Hypothesis. 

Hypothesis  is  a  mixture  of  evidence  and  be- 
lief. It  comes  about  in  this  way.  With  any  given 
content,  at  first  a  few  facts  appear.  After  a  time 
these  facts,  taken  together,  are  suspected  of  hav- 
ing tendencies  in  certain  directions.  They  show  a 
kind  of  kinship  among  themselves.  It  is  natural, 
finally,  to  have  a  theory  about  them.  In  this 
way  a  working  hypothesis  is  formed.  At  first 
it  is  no  more  than  a  guess.  The  guesser  proceeds 
to  verify  his  guess — or  to  discover  that  he  is  mis- 
taken. There  is  no  deceit  about  it,  no  bias  or 
prejudice  for  or  against;  for  it  is  understood,  if 

26 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

the  facts  set  aside  the  theory,  no  regret  is  to  be 
entertained,  because  the  end  is  not  the  theory, 
but  the  truth.  An  untenable  hypothesis  has  the 
value  of  showing  where  the  truth  is  not.  By  so 
much  it  shuts  the  searcher  into  closer  quarters. 
This  kind  of  guess  work  is  a  favorite  method  in 
all  scientific  investigation. 

The  Analytic  and  the  Synthetic. 

A  practical  machinist  takes  apart  or  puts 
together,  as  occasion  demands.  The  first  method 
is  analytic,  the  second  is  synthetic.  The  mind, 
in  pursuit  of  its  truth,  uses,  normally,  both  meth- 
ods. The  analytic  process,  now  much  in  vogue 
and  overworked,  is  not  new.  The  oldest  thinkers 
made  large  use  of  it.  They  applied  it  to  life  and 
conduct  in  a  masterful  way.  To  them  the  whole- 
ness of  things  appeared  too  great  for  understand- 
ing. The  writers  of  the  ancient  wisdom  books 
had  the  real  scientific  spirit.  They  looked  on  life 
in  detail.  They  examined  conduct  and  put  down 
what  they  found.  The  facts  of  life  had,  at  their 
hands,  a  thorough  overhauling.  The  result  was 
a  great  accumulation  of  data.  From  these  the 
laws  of  conduct,  individual  and  social,  have  been 
written. 

27 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Unceasingly  the  analytic  process  furnishes 
material  for  generalization.  The  science  depart- 
ments to-day  are  engaged  in  this  business.  They 
are  distinguished  from  each  other  in  that  they 
each  express  so  much  of  the  totality  of  being. 
But  the  results  of  the  separate  sciences,  as  well 
as  the  method  which  each  pursues,  must  be  made 
valid  alike,  and  must  find  their  unity  in  some 
ultimate  basal  reality — some  thoroughgoing  and 
universal  truth.  There  must  be  a  final  concept 
which  underbinds  all  the  departments.  The  syn- 
thetic philosophy  undertakes  to  fasten  the  inductive 
sciences  together — in  other  words,  to  reach  some 
valid  final  conclusion  which  may  be  true  of  all 
of  them.  It  uses  no  crucible  or  microscope  or 
telescope  or  physical  apparatus  of  any  kind.  It 
asks  only  for  the  groundwork  and  substance  of 
things,  and  whether  or  not  things  hang  together, 
cosmically,  in  obedience  to  an  intelligent  admin- 
istration. 

Significantly,  the  ages  have  been  disturbed 
with  a  restless  yearning  to  know  the  real.  The 
common  mind  of  the  race  has  always  made  that 
sort  of  inquiry.  Beyond  this  sensuous  world  there 
must  be  some  masterful  force  which  runs  things. 
Such  is  the  universal  feeling.  That  tremendous 
28 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

conviction  may  not  be  formally  pursued  by  the 
common  mind,  nevertheless  it  inheres  there  in 
its  dignity  and  power. 

Genetic  Investments. 

We  are  in  possession  of  much  knowledge  for 
which  no  deduction  is  accountable.  It  is  a  knowl- 
edge which  has  not  been  reasoned  out.  The 
ordinary  terms  of  knowledge  do  not  apply  to  it. 
It  crosses  lots.  It  sees  straight.  It  is  knowledge 
by  immediacy. 

Before  reason  is  active  at  all,  the  new-born 
child  seeks  the  mother's  breast.  We  call  that 
instinct.  But  it  is  a  knowing  faculty.  It  is  a 
capacity  implicate  at  birth.  It  was  not  brought 
into  being  by  the  outer  correspondences.  It  is 
the  immediate  unreflecting  grip  of  the  child-spirit 
on  elemental  truth.  The  capacity,  with  its  di- 
rective will,  comes  into  being  with  the  child  or- 
ganized and  ready  for  business.  That  species  of 
knowing  has  a  genetic  origin.  Whatever  be  its 
nature,  it  has  come  marching  through  the  nucle- 
ated cells  of  the  prenatal  state.  The  potential 
manlife  is  complete  at  the  start.  The  child  will 
flourish  only  after  one  pattern.  If  sensations  get 
in  on  the  ground-floor,  they  will  find  that  pattern 

29 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

in  the  cellar.  It  is  a  blue-print  of  procreative 
blessings  and  curses.  The  child  does  not  load 
up  with  that  determining  investment  after  it  has 
learned  to  swim  in  the  sea  of  sensations.  By 
that  it  learns  to  swim.  Heredity  is  stronger  than 
environment.  As  soon  as  we  are  born  we  are  in 
possession  of  all  the  radical  characteristics  of  the 
after-life.  We  are  born  with  a  mental  clean  sheet 
only  in  the  sense  that  the  prenatal  life  is  a  shut-in 
life.  As  long  as  the  black  cloth  hangs  over  the 
nose  of  the  camera  the  sensitive  plate  does  not 
record  impressions.  Each  child  born  is  held  by 
certain  elements  of  truth  as  in  a  matrix,  like  a 
brick  is  held  in  place  by  the  mortar,  and  the 
whole  after-life  must  bend  to  these  prenatal  po- 
tencies. They  have  been  given  dominion  with 
the  human  destination  in  view.  They  will  not 
suffer  themselves  shunted  aside,  and  the  child, 
under  them,  has  a  knowing  capacity  which  lies 
below  consciousness.  Kant  writes  profoundly  of 
the  inner  mind — of  its  synthetic  and  constructive 
powers,  and  of  its  masterfulness  of  all  impressions 
— and  of  a  special  subjective  activity  which  is 
constitutive  of  what  experience  really  is.  True 
knowledge  is  not  a  mere  grafting  and  classifying. 
The  true  experience  is  a  worked-over  experience, 

30 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

and  not  a  straight  reflex.  There  is  no  place  to  get 
ready-made  knowledge.  The  simple  sensations 
which  the  mind  appropriates  are  not  as  simple 
as  they  seem.  They  have  not  become  affairs  of 
thought  until  they  have  '  passed  the  gauntlet  of 
relative  impressions  and  are  on  their  way  to  a 
balance  of  discreet  judgments,  and  into  which 
the  personal  equation  has  been  worked.  As  an 
evidence  that  the  mental  content,  with  its  potent 
basal  unities,  does  not  originate  with  ordinary 
sensation,  it  is  sufficient  to  take  account  of  the 
fact  that  in  mental  appropriation  discontinuity 
is  never  reached.  The  very  first  mental  mani- 
festations of  the  child  have  alignment  as  definite 
and  clear  as  are  the  features  of  its  body  and  face. 
An  unrelated  aggregate  of  simple  sensations  is 
unknown  in  genetic  psychology.  They  are  all  cut 
to  fit  as  they  are  appropriated.  Sensations  are 
subordinated  to  the  mind  plan.  They  do  not  meet 
there  as  strangers  in  a  vacuum.  We  only  begin  to 
boggle  with  sensation  after  we  grow  awhile  and 
get  lazy.  What  we  are  is  more  genetic  than  cir- 
cumstantial. The  human  unit  is  cosmically  set  in. 


31 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Subconscious  Mind. 

With  the  later  advances  of  psychological  study 
it  is  not  possible  to  ignore  the  existence  and  nature 
of  the  subconscious  mind  as  a  source  of  human 
knowledge.  It  goes  with  the  saying  that  only  a 
small  feature  of  the  intelligence  of  nature,  as  a 
whole,  rises  to  consciousness.  And  it  is  in  no  small 
degree  significant  that  a  fact  so  confidently  be- 
lieved and  accepted  for  generations  has  not,  before 
now,  led  to  the  hint  of  the  same  kind  of  intelli- 
gent underground  in  the  human  life.  The  older 
students  of  the  human  mind  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  formal  outer  manifestation  of  mind  com- 
pleted its  unity  and  made  of  it  all  that  it  could 
possibly  be.  They  may  have  suspected  the  exist- 
ence of  some  mental  factors  which  did  not  readily 
yield  themselves  to  a  classification  under  the  in- 
tellect, the  sensibilities,  and  the  will,  but  they 
took  no  pains  to  investigate.  They  studied  mind 
after  it  had  come  to  consciousness,  and  put  down 
all  its  phases  in  the  categories  which  the  schoolboy 
may  learn.  But  these  older  students  had  no 
knowledge  of  a  sustained  consciousness  anywhere, 
and  ought  to  have  gotten  from  the  fact  the  in- 
timation that  mind  must  be  able  to  exist  below 
consciousness. 

32 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

Beyond  all  the  rich  values  which  our  con- 
scious fellowships  with  the  world  bring  us,  it  is 
always  a  pleasant  discovery  to  us  that  we  may 
make  occasional  use  of  a  truth  that  lies  behind 
the  scenes.  Many  of  our  strongest  personal  con- 
victions take  possession  of  us  through  subcon- 
scious channels.  We  often  do  not  know  how  we* 
came  by  that  which  we  hold  dearer  than  life. 
In  the  ordinary  way  our  senses  are  alert  to  get 
the  best  life  has  for  us.  We  take  pride  in  being 
alive  to  whatever  is  going  on.  As  the  years  come 
and  go  we  make  the  best  possible  use  of  expe- 
rience, and  we  expect  confidently  to  get  wiser  as 
we  get  older.  And  yet  we  can  not  escape  from  the 
feeling  that  very  much  of  what  we  are  has  been 
determined  for  us  by  some  mysterious  underpull, 
the  nature  of  which  we  do  not  always  understand 
and  the  purposes  of  which  we  are  dull  to  interpret. 
We  are  like  ships  at  sea.  The  buffet  of  surface 
winds  and  waves  we  feel;  the  tides  and  under- 
currents we  do  not  feel. 

Now  the  evidences  are,  from  the  severest 
known  tests,  that  the  human  mind  is  in  posses- 
sion of  faculties  which  lie  below  those  in  use  in 
the  ordinary  ways  of  life.  The  evolutionists  tell 
us  that  the  human  body  has  reached  its  final 
3  33 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

stages.  It  has  come  to  maturity.  Man's  physical 
life  is  now  a  finality.  It  has  rounded  itself  out  to 
express  its  powers  and  functions  in  the  com- 
pletest  way.  It  will  not  get  any  bigger  or  stronger 
or  live  longer.  And  it  may  be  for  this  reason 
that  the  deeper  nature  of  the  mind  is  beginning 
to  show  itself.  At  least  the  limit  of  the  action  of 
the  body  is  not  a  prophecy  of  a  limit  put  on  the 
action  of  mind.  Indeed,  the  physical  rounding-in 
may  be  the  occasion  of  the  mental  breaking-out. 
That  may  be  nature's  meaning.  The  newer  evolu- 
tion may  be  a  leap  from  the  summit  of  the  phys- 
ical formula  into  a  deeper  expression  of  the  essen- 
tial spirit-nature  of  that  formula.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  the  human  self  is  now  known  to  be  very 
complex,  and  it  is  not  wise  to  hazard  any  limit 
to  its  powers,  or  to  conclude  that  what  we  have 
not  found  out  can  not  be  found  out. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  mentally,  was  a  child 
of  nature.  He  always  prized  very  highly  the 
subconscious  products  of  his  mind.  He  says: 
"Unconscious  thought,  there  is  the  only  method. 
Macerate  your  subject — let  it  boil  slow,  then 
take  the  lid  off  and  look  in,  and  there  your  stuff  is, 
good  or  bad."  He  often  became  a  spectator  of 
himself,  curious  to  know  what  his  unconscious 

34 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

brain  was  going  to  do  for  him.  Stocky-minded- 
ness  is  always  flattered  with  the  curt  saying  that 
genius  lies  next  to  insanity,  and  for  that  reason, 
probably,  the  sentiment  lives.  Genius  is  not 
exactly  normal  for  the  reason  that  the  normal  is 
the  usual.  Genius  may  belong  to  the  higher 
sanities — it  may  be  an  inbreak  from  the  unseen 
which  startles  the  incapacities  of  the  common 
mind. 

It  is  certain  that  the  master  composers  all 
worked  under  an  afflatus.  The  orator  is  never 
great  until  he  gets  lost.  The  arithmetical  wonders 
which  have  astonished  the  world  did  not  express 
themselves  through  the  ordinary  apprehensions 
which  we  have  of  numbers.  Very  few  of  them 
have  been  able  to  give  account  of  themselves. 
Whately's  extraordinary  computing  powers  only 
lasted  him  three  years  in  childhood.  He  says 
himself  they  wore  off  and  left  him  a  dunce  in 
figures.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  given  to  brood- 
ing. He  would  not  be  hurried  into  great  con- 
clusions. Almost  unconsciously  to  himself  he  gave 
his  mental  powers  a  gestative  time  to  themselves. 
He  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  modes  by 
which  he  arrived  at  the  wholeness  of  his  con- 
clusions. Keen  apprehensiveness,  devout  patriot- 

35 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

ism,  conscious  honesty,  and  with  the  self-under- 
standing that  these  were  in  him,  he  had  the 
simplest  kind  of  faith  that  his  political  judgments 
would  bring  him  out  at  about  the  right  place. 
When  he  felt  things  in  his  bones,  he  went  forward 
with  great  courage  and  great  ability.  He  was 
the  most  unerring  statesman  of  modern  times. 
"  We  have  potentially  a  subliminal  self,  which  may 
make  at  any  time  an  irruption  into  our  lives.  At 
the  lowest  it  is  only  the  depository  of  our  for- 
gotten memories;  at  the  highest  we  do  not  know 
what  it  is."  (James.) 

With  the  mass  of  us,  whether  we  wake  or 
sleep,  whether  we  wander  into  the  woods  or  walk 
by  the  sea,  OUT  inner  thought  realm  is  always  at 
work  to  bend  things  or  break  them  in  the  direc- 
tion of  our  settled  determinations.  Burden  the 
mind  with  a  theme  and  we  will  make  headway 
with  it  through  the  hours  of  sleep.  When  we 
retire  at  night  the  mind  may  be  set  to  wake — say 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  There  is  usually 
an  awakening  at  that  hour,  or,  if  not,  there  will 
be  a  disturbed  sleep.  Many  persons  can  depend 
on  themselves  to  wake  at  the  hour  set  when 
retiring. 

36 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

You  have  stood  alone  on  the  bank  of  a  great 
river  and  have  felt  the  pull  of  the  current.  The 
feeling  appears  to  be  made  up  in  equal  parts  of 
strength  and  majesty  and  dread.  The  common 
flow  of  it  is  placid — the  torrent  of  it  is  an  up- 
heaval of  power.  It  is  a  tradition  among  the  In- 
dians that  even  a  brave  could  not  stand  long  in 
the  presence  of  Niagara.  He  must  break  into 
the  forest,  out  of  sight  and  out  of  hearing.  And 
yet  Niagara  is  only  the  smooth  stream  above  in 
culminant  whirl.  That  figure  may  not  go  on  all 
fours  to  express  what  the  mind  is  in  the  wholeness 
of  its  deep  nature;  but  certain  it  is  that  we  are 
possessed  of  a  hidden  rational  power  which  only 
in  supreme  moments  asserts  itself — but  when  it 
does  rise  up  to  close  with  the  open  issues  of  life, 
it  brings  with  it  the  authority  of  the  absolute 
reason  and  our  obedience  is  dumb. 

We  are  all  acquainted  with  experiences  of 
unusual  mental  exhilaration — when  we  have  awak- 
ened to  some  startling  enlargement  of  conscious- 
ness— when  visions  of  thrilling  rapture  have 
seemed  to  transport  the  spirit  out  to  the  edges 
of  a  vaster  realm  from  which,  through  other 
mysterious  outreaches,  it  has  seemed  to  articulate 
37 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

vividly  with  the  unseen;  and  at  these  high  points 
of  the  understanding  we  have  felt  capable  of 
being  touched  with  a  true  inspiration. 

Aside  from  the  violent  and  commanding  voices 
of  the  subconscious  mind,  the  evidences  are  ac- 
cumulating that  we  are  never  detached  from  its 
influence.  Any  strong  personal  desire — any  deep- 
driven  purpose — will  bend  one's  energies  in  that 
direction  in  numberless  and  unexpected  ways. 
Set  a  strong  determination  and  nurse  a  justified 
ambition — drive  them  both  down  to  stay,  and 
they  will  pull  at  the  spirit  through  all  the  days; 
they  will  produce  moments  of  astonishment.  The 
nature  of  these  self-experiences  are  such  as  to 
lead  us  to  suspect  that  the  undercurrents  within 
us  are,  in  some  mysterious  way,  concurrent  with 
the  movements  of  the  spirit  forces  in  the  universe, 
and  that  we  tap  not  ourselves,  but  the  fathomless 
cosmic  mind.  If  such  an  intimation  is  in  the 
direction  of  the  truth,  it  is  vastly  prophetic.  If 
it  is  a  pure  fancy  it  is  a  very  rich  one.  If  it  is 
the  truth  it  is  an  approach  to  God  by  way  of 
the  universe.  Since  the  world  began  these  deeper 
currents  of  the  mind  have  been  throwing  scintilla- 
tions to  the  surface — showing  all  the  time  a  vast 
talent  for  the  occult. 

38 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

Hallucinations,  mystic  signs,  seances,  trances, 
omens,  spirit  rappings,  hypnotisms,  telepathies, 
witches — what  countless  numbers  are  now  under 
the  influence  of  these  and  kindred  kinds  of  belief 
and  manifestation!  It  is  known  to  scholarship 
now  that  much  of  the  finding  in  this  region  is 
the  stuff  which  the  charlatan  has  picked  up  out 
of  a  rubbish  heap.  He  makes  merchandise  out  of 
the  affinity  of  the  uncultured  mind  for  the  weird 
and  the  strange.  The  explanation  of  the  world's 
idolatries  is  the  explanation  for  that.  Spiritual- 
ism and  Christian  Science  have  a  sturdy  founda- 
tion for  their  fallacies.  Destroy  not  the  founda- 
tion. Pull  it  out  from  under.  A  vast  literature 
which  establishes  no  specific  fact  for  the  cult  may 
be  set  aside,  but  it  is  time  to  heed  all  intimations 
from  the  human  spirit  that  it  has  been  struggling 
with  impulsions  which  connect  it  in  some  mys- 
terious way  with  elemental  undercurrents  of  a 
kind  which  do  not  find  expression  in  the  ordinary 
channels  of  knowledge. 

The  question  which  looms  biggest  is  not  the 
degree  of  truth  or  falsehood  in  these  mostly  path- 
ological and  absurd  features  of  the  mind's  life;  but 
what  deep  of  the  human  spirit  calls  for  such,  and 
what  deep  of  the  cosmos  makes  any  response  at  all. 

39 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

It  is  the  intent  here  that  no  appeal  shall  be 
made  which  the  terms  of  knowledge  will  not 
justify,  but  to  the  scholarship  of  the  world  the 
inference  appears  fair  that  an  underworld  of  power 
exists — into  which  those  who  pursue  knowledge 
have  yet  made  but  few  sane  advances.  The 
human  life  is  evidently  set  for  its  action  in  the 
edges  of  a  region  of  perplexing  and  impenetrable 
mystery. 

On  one  side  the  objective  mind,  we  may  call 
it,  has  its  centers  in  the  organ  of  the  brain.  It 
is  pure  intellect,  as  we  understand  that  term.  It 
has  capacity  for  observation  and  comparison  and 
deduction.  It  makes  its  advances  by  the  formal 
logical  process.  It  goes  the  weary  way  of  induc- 
tion. And  that  is  said  without  invidious  discrim- 
ination, for  we  shall  never  be  able  to  dispense  with 
it.  It  may  travel  on  crutches,  but  it  is  an  open, 
plain,  and  safe  way.  It  is  the  way  where  con- 
fidence is  buttressed  about  on  every  side.  But 
if  the  spirit  is  to  be  shut  up  to  its  logical  deduc- 
tions, it  must  be  a  slow  learner  forever. 

On  the  other  side,  and  without  in  the  least 
detracting  from  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  mind 
as  a  whole,  the  subconscious  mentality  has  a 
clearer  intimacy  and  kinship  with  the  universally- 

40 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

diffused  intelligence.  The  intuitions  appear  to 
spring  up  out  of  it.  Unconscious  cerebration  may 
belong  there,  and  also  many  of  the  fine  things 
which  possess  the  life  through  the  emotions.  The 
ordinary  movements  of  the  mind  seem  to  be  aside 
from  the  startling  reserves  of  power  which  gen- 
iuses and  prodigies  show.  Their  messages  appear 
to  break  upward  directly  from  the  great  mother 
sea — now  in  the  musical  numbers  of  a  Beethoven, 
now  in  the  mathetic  capacity  of  the  boy  who 
could  quickly  cube  nine  numbers;  now  in  the 
poetry  of  a  Shakespeare;  now  in  the  revelations  of 
the  Nazarene,  who  touched  fountains  of  truth 
by  immediacy  which  have  transformed  the  earth. 
Whatever  may  be  any  one's  estimate  of  the 
nature  of  the  Christ,  only  the  natural  features  of 
His  human  career  are  here  considered.  His  grasp 
of  reality  was  a  flesh-set  mind-grasp.  His  mes- 
sage flowed  out  through  the  natural  avenues  of 
language  and  affection.  He  was  also  a  citizen  of 
the  underworld  of  power;  but  it  has  come  to 
pass  that  the  New  Testament  evidences  of  that 
fact  are  not  so  wonderful  as  His  saying,  "Greater 
works  than  these  shall  he  do."  The  works  of 
Christ  signify  a  yet  unknown  mastery  of  mind 
over  matter;  but  they  have  been  outclassed  by 

41 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  achievements  of  modern  science,  as  He  said 
they  would  be.  The  veil  of  a  great  mystery  drops 
down  here,  so  small  is  the  measure  of  human 
knowledge  of  the  subliminal  world;  and  yet  we 
are  possessed  with  the  feeling  which  amounts  to 
an  assurance  that,  in  this  underland  of  our  spirits, 
there  is  an  original  and  originating  power  which 
is  as  superior  to  the  ordinary  human  faculty  as 
the  sun  is  superior  to  the  light  of  the  glow-worm 
in  the  grass.  The  few  measures  we  have  of  it 
stir  us  as  the  universe  does.  We  can  imagine 
how  it  might  bulk  too  large  for  the  earth  and, 
by  all  honest  inference,  demand  for  its  fuller 
expression  the  play-room  of  endless  being.  A 
loadstone  of  power — we  can  not  tell  how  great 
it  is,  but  hard  by  all  that  we  know  of  it,  the  sense 
of  the  divine  sets  in. 

Victor  Hugo,  above  all  that  the  world  knows 
of  his  phosphorescent  brain,  fairly  writhed  in  the 
agony  of  pent-up  fires  which  were  never  brought 
to  a  blaze.  He  was  sure  that  he  had  never  ex- 
pressed the  thousandth  part  of  what  was  in  him. 
We  are  all  sure  that  we  never  completely  express 
ourselves.  Any  mental  worker  knows  that  the 
plummet  line  of  thought  and  research  never  goes 
to  the  bottom.  So  constantly  is  this  test  being 

42 


PRIMARY  TRUTH  INVESTMENTS. 

made  that  scholarship  is  now  ready  for  the  propo- 
sition, "There  is  ilo  bottom." 

The  human  memory  itself  is  only  potentially 
perfect  when  it  sinks  down  and  looses  itself  con- 
sciously. The  formal  memory  is  a  feeble  flame — 
a  stocky  mental  capacity,  whose  value  is  over- 
estimated. The  causative  memory  is  subjective, 
and  the  true  conservator  of  experience.  It  keeps 
the  residue  of  values.  It  is  the  capacity  by  which 
we  hold  fast  by  letting  loose.  Cut  the  edges  of 
an  event  clear,  sink  it  down  into  the  underworld, 
and  then  forget  it  as  quickly  as  possible.  It  will 
stay  there  as  a  reserve  for  the  crisis  time.  The 
principle  holds  for  all  the  circumstances  of  life. 
Ruggedness,  hard  lines,  attrition,  sorrow  will  be 
its  portion.  All  the  tests  of  character,  all  the 
joys  of  achievement,  all  the  smaller  daily  lessons 
are  taken  down  and  out  of  sight  by  the  true 
memory  and  are  held  there  in  reserve  for  the 
exigencies  of  a  broader  day.  Such  a  subconscious 
storage  is  prophetic.  It  is  of  the  mind  which  is 
to  be.  It  is  the  infinite  apprehensiveness.  A 
grub — a  pupa — it  may  break  through  in  the 
parturition  of  the  ages. 


43 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  ULTIMATE  KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

"WITHOUT  which  nothing"  is  the  highest  degree 
of  certitude  for  the  human  mind.  That  much 
can  only  be  said  of  a  First  Cause.  For  that  reason 
the  being  of  God  is  taken  for  granted  in  these 
pages.  By  the  consent  of  scholarship  the  Divine 
existence  is  not  approached  or  proven  by  the 
ordinary  terms  of  knowledge.  Healthful-minded- 
ness  is  impatient  of  all  argument  at  that  point. 
The  absence  of  the  sense  of  God  in  the  human 
spirit  is  abnormal.  Open  denial  is  a  species  of 
insanity.  God  is.  Now,  what  are  the  grappling 
hooks?  How  does  it  come  about  that  the  mind 
lays  hold  on  that  truth?  And  why  should  it  be 
anchored  there?  If  we  can  get  an  answer  we  shall 
reach  the  assurance  that  religion  is  more  than  a 
sentiment. 

Is  Matter  Real. 

Do  the  senses  convey  to  us  the  evidences  of  a 
real  world  of  matter?  By  the  terms  of  common 
sense  we  say  yes.  By  the  terms  which  certify  to 

44 


THE   ULTIMATE  KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

exact  knowledge  we  are  not  so  sure  about  it.  We 
say  it  has  metes  and  bounds.  It  partly  fills  space. 
It  maintains  its  identical  weight  in  the  last  re- 
solves of  the  laboratory.  All  seeming  destruc- 
tions of  it  are  deceits.  New  bodies  are  made  of 
collected  substances.  So  far  as  we  know,  particles 
of  matter  do  not  come  into  being — do  not  go 
out  of  being. 

Yet  many  acute  thinkers  have  insisted  that 
the  objective  has  no  real  existence.  The  denial 
of  matter  is  usually  fortressed  by  a  special  defini- 
tion. It  is  named  matter  set  apart — matter  as  a 
dead  entity — an  inert,  senseless  substance.  The 
redoubtable  Dr.  Johnson  would  have  none  of 
these.  He  would  charge  up  to  his  friends  of  the 
holy  mystification  some  sensible  definition  and 
then  waylay  them  with  a  remorseless  irony.  He 
would  kick  a  stone  and  keep  still.  Reid  and 
Beattie  would  tell  Berkeley  to  go  butt  his  head 
against  a  post.  But  Fichte  could  not  see  how 
the  self  had  any  outlet  as  long  as  it  beat  against 
things — if  it  were  held  in  like  the  waves  are  held 
in  by  the  limitations  of  the  shores.  He  could 
not  see  that  substance  normally  conditions  the 
self. 

Material  substance  is  the  basis  of  self-expres- 
45 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

sion.  There  is  no  other  way  for  the  self  to  get  out, 
or  for  outer  ideas  to  get  in.  The  house  you  live 
in,  is  it  there,  or  not,  when  you  are  away?  The 
flowers  of  the  forest — do  they  actually  bloom 
unseen?  The  sight  of  an  object  conveys  to  the 
brain  through  the  optic  nerve  the  impression  pic- 
ture which  the  light  makes  on  the  retina  of  the 
eye.  This  process,  which  conveys  the  sense  of 
some  of  the  qualities  of  the  object  to  the  brain, 
constitutes  the  sight  capacity  with  its  outer  cor- 
respondences, and  the  result  is  the  concept.  But 
is  the  object  invested  with  the  colors  we  see? 
A  million  pairs  of  normal  eyes,  through  the  re- 
flective judgment,  say  it  is.  That  is,  the  proper- 
ties of  an  object  correspond  with  the  sense  im- 
pressions of  what  they  are. 

The  properties  of  an  object  thus  related  to 
the  human  capacity  is  a  distinct  marvel — and  a 
distinct  fact.  Objects  wrought  into  beauty  forms 
appear  to  have  appreciation  in  view;  but  appre- 
ciation implies  a  realism  and  realism  signifies  the 
integrity  of  the  object.  The  power  acting  in 
things  makes  them  what  they  are — envisaged  veri- 
ties. Balfour  says,  "Everybody  knows  that  color 
is  not  a  property  of  the  thing  seen."  Everybody 
knows  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  mass  of  folks 

46 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

refer  color  to  the  property  of  an  object  and  not 
to  the  sensation.  Suppose  we  see  only  a  sensa- 
tion. Then  the  object  is  an  inference.  Is  a  sensa- 
tion valid  and  an  inference  not?  A  boy  under- 
stands when  he  sees  an  object  that  the  object 
does  not  get  into  his  head;  but  no  refinement  of 
thinking  will  ever  get  him  away  from  the  position 
that  the  object  is  real.  Certain  objects  produce 
certain  sensations.  The  fact  that  sensation  is  sub- 
jective does  not  invalidate  the  reality  of  objects 
or  their  properties.  When  the  coffee  burns  my 
tongue  my  tongue  is  hot,  and  the  coffee  is  hot 
also.  We  do  business  on  that  kind  of  judgment 
without  splitting  hairs.  If  the  property  which 
produces  the  sensation  does  not  belong  to  the 
object,  where  does  it  belong?  Are  we  in  the  land 
of  spooks?  Sensation  and  reality  are  sometimes 
divergent  terms,  but  we  go  on  trusting  our  sensa- 
tions, under  the  ballast  of.  experience,  without 
great  hazard.  If  there  is  no  real  world  of  outside 
physical  fact,  we  ought  not  to  meet  such  disas- 
trous errors  of  interpretation.  We  ought  not  to 
find  anything  which  refuses  to  yield  when  we  push 
against  it.  Any  pretense  to  a  deeper  view  will 
not  stand  against  the  plain  and  palpable  judg- 
ment of  mankind  that  the  outer  world  is  actual. 

47 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

When  matter  obtrudes  itself  everywhere,  that  is 
the  end  of  it  for  the  common  understanding. 
Matter  is  a  basal  reality  and  the  sole  means  by 
which  intelligence  makes  its  expressions  and  wins 
its  understandings. 

The  Actual  Least  Particle. 

The  actual  mass  means  the  actual  least  particle. 
It  may  be  the  atom,  or  the  corpuscle,  or  the 
electron,  or  whatever  term  may  stand  for  the 
ultimate  material  analytical  refinement.  We  know 
that  matter  combines  in  certain  proportions.  The 
ultimate  active  unit  must  therefore  be  a  definite 
mass.  That  unit  has  never  been  discovered,  but 
we  know  it  to  exist  as  certainly  as  if  we  had  taken 
it  between  our  thumb  and  forefinger.  We  know 
it  as  we  know  of  the  existence  of  an  undiscovered 
planet,  by  the  way  it  pulls  the  other  planets 
around.  We  think  of  the  atom  as  a  first  physical 
fact,  but  that  kind  of  thinking  amounts  to  an 
intellectual  excision.  The  ultimate  unit,  in  all 
actuality,  is  a  unit  of  energy.  As  a  physical  fact 
it  obeys  multiple  commanding  and  orderly  forces. 
It  is  not  a  dead  thing.  In  soil  and  rocks  and  air 
and  water  and  minerals  and  meteoric  stuff  and 
fire-mist  the  atom  is  a  living  force.  It  is  a  some- 

48 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

what  with  eyes — with  a  temper  and  a  passion.  It 
belongs  to  a  well  set  up  kingdom.  It  fits  into  an 
administration  which  does  not  turn  aside  at  our 
behest,  nor  is  it  disturbed  by  our  little  invasions 
and  inquiries.  Each  atom  is  known  to  follow  the 
law  of  its  own  behavior  in  the  presence  of  all 
other  atoms.  We  call  that  affinity.  The  atom 
does  not  do  anything  anywhere  without  reference 
to  or  expectation  about  all  other  atoms  with  which 
it  is  associated.  It  recognizes  the  fact  of  its  affin- 
ities. The  units  of  responsive  force  in  each  atom 
must  equal  the  affinities  involved  in  its  fellowship 
with  all  other  atoms  in  a  definite  combination. 
That  staggers  the  imagination. 

Law  a  Transcendence. 

In  each  of  the  elementary  substances  the  ele- 
ments combine  in  different  proportions,  giving  to 
each  substance  its  atomic  weight.  This  propor- 
tion is  what  constitutes  it  an  elementary  substance. 
The  elementary  ratios  and  arrangements  have  an 
integrity  of  their  own.  There  are  no  gold  or  silver 
atoms.  When  the  laboratory  is  able  to  handle  the 
question  of  ratios  and  arrangements  with  the  pre- 
cious metals  the  days  of  alchemy  are  here.  Both 
quantitative  and  qualitative  laws  may  be  relied 
4  49 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

on.  They  never  fail  the  experimenter  when  he 
has  been  able  to  master  them.  They  respond  as 
promptly  and  intelligently  as  the  voice  of  a  friend. 
Whether  or  not  the  chemist  can  resolve  the  ele- 
ments further  than  their  molecular  groupings  we 
are  not  informed,  but  if  he  can  he  can  not  put 
them  together  again.  By  which  we  understand 
the  material  feature  of  the  atom  to  be  one  essence 
and  the  atomic  relatedness  another.  The  law,  as 
a  transcendence,  coerces  the  stuff.  These  ultimate 
particles  may  not  mirror  the  world,  as  Leibniz 
thought  they  did,  but  they  mirror  their  own  his- 
tory in  the  laws  which  grip  them  and  which  con- 
stitute them  what  they  are — living,  intelligent 
units  of  energy  able  to  keep  tryst  with  marvelous 
affinities. 

Furthermore,  it  is  a  distinct  wonder  in  syn- 
thetic chemistry  that  it  has  been  able  to  take  the 
atomic  rhythm  of  many  substances  which  nature 
has  always  produced  and  build  these  substances 
themselves  in  the  laboratory.  Indigo  is  an  in- 
stance; and  synthetic  rubber  is  the  next  expecta- 
tion. These  achievements,  we  are  told,  come 
about,  not  through  a  discovery  of  the  atomic 
equivalents,  but  through  a  discovery  of  how  the 
atoms  go  together  in  a  compound.  It  is  a  dis- 

50 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

co very  of  the  arrangements  of  the  atoms.  The 
different  relative  positions  of  the  elements  of  a 
molecule  account  for  the  different  compounds 
which  may  have  the  same  quantitative  chemical 
value.  Nature,  therefore,  achieves  her  wonders  in 
the  production  of  animal  and  vegetable  compounds 
simply  by  a  different  arrangement  of  the  atoms  in 
each  particular  case.  Any  little  shake  of  the 
kaleidoscope  will  produce  a  new  and  startling 
combination  of  geometric  lines  and  colors;  and  so 
vast  is  the  reach  of  the  mathetic  rhythm  that  the 
chance  of  the  return  of  the  same  figure  is  prac- 
tically negligible.  So  a  single  letter  in  the  alphabet 
set  differently  is  capable  of  bringing  about  thou- 
sands of  variant  meanings.  The  laboratory,  as  we 
understand,  makes  use  of  a  feature  of  this  law. 
But  the  particular  thing  to  be  noted,  and  which 
is  of  value  to  this  discussion,  is  that  these  isomeric 
forms  do  not  introduce  us  into  a  world  of  chance. 
The  same  arrangement  of  the  atoms  in  the  mole- 
cules produces  the  same  compound  invariably. 
The  laws  of  chemical  compounding  are  equal,  in 
the  certainties  of  their  action,  to  those  which  com- 
pel the  steady  movements  of  the  planets. 

So,  also,  if  we  look  where  the  telescope  points, 
the  evidences  are  equally  clear  that  the  real  aspect 
51 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

of  truth  is  a  spirit  aspect.  Instance  the  higher 
mathematics.  Symbols,  we  know,  are  used  to 
express  the  formal  laws  of  invariance.  The  mind 
is  not  seriously  clogged  with  the  symbols  of  mathe- 
matics because  they  are  palpably  so.  The  truth 
which  the  mind  pursues  is  far  and  away  beyond  the 
vision  of  the  blunt  fact  of  the  symbol,  which  is 
but  a  flimsy  handle,  and  the  mind  knows  it.  The 
logical  constants  of  the  stellar  universe  yield  them- 
selves to  the  calculations  of  the  student  through 
the  symbols,  as  conveniences  simply,  while  above 
them  the  mind  lives  in  a  realm  of  spirit.  The 
mathematician  grapples  with  potencies  and  laws 
in  the  spaces  which  have  an  action  like  the  action 
of  his  own  intellect.  He  interprets  generic  law, 
which  is  primary  to  the  law  of  numbers  in  com- 
mon use.  The  mathetic  spirit  elects  for  its  uses 
letters,  signs,  diagrams,  equations,  formulas,  and 
by  their  substitutions  and  transformations,  in  end- 
less ways,  it  pursues  its  course  into  a  region  where 
it  grasps  perceptions  which  do  not  vanish. 

The  visible  symbols  sustain  the  thought — they 
husband  its  movements  until  it  can  pull  itself  up 
to  where  it  has  an  immediate  discerning  of  the 
things  of  mathematics;  and  that  point  of  arrival 
is  none  other  than  a  psychic  illumination. 
52 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

The  Present  Tendency  of  Research. 

In  any  form  of  matter  is  another  somewhat 
besides  the  form.  We  use  the  word  intelligence  to 
express  what  we  detect.  And  that  word  always 
confuses  the  people  who  can  not  see  intelligence 
except  as  it  connects  with  a  human  brain.  We 
do  not  see  an  entity  separate  from  form,  but  we 
suspect  that  the  way  of  nature  is  the  path  of  an 
intelligence. 

The  tools  of  the  laboratory  have  been  a  little 
slow  to  take  hold  of  a  supreme  fact.  Retorts  and 
reagents  are  used  for  the  disjointing  of  nature. 
They  run  a  fact  into  a  corner  and  shut  the  door 
on  it.  They  are  severely,  and  almost  exclusively, 
analytic.  The  outcome  has  been  a  philosophic 
one-sidedness.  A  supra-sensible  mystery  now  lies 
flush  with  the  latest  experiments  in  physics  and 
chemistry.  The  processes  of  nature  are  seen  to 
be  secondary  to  that  which  decrees  them.  The 
human  understanding  does  not  come  to  rest  when 
it  has  traveled  the  road  certain  forces  have  taken. 
The  why  of  the  way  is  a  vital  inquiry.  The  old 
idea  of  dead  matter — of  inert  stuff — has  gone  from 
all  the  departments  of  the  sciences.  Students  of 
high  attainment  and  position  are  giving  recog- 
nition to  the  manifestations  of  the  non-material. 

53 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Mr.  Reid,  the  American  Ambassador  to  Great 
Britain,  in  an  address  to  the  University  College, 
Bristol,  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  tendency 
of  the  American  educational  system  was  to  shift 
the  emphasis  from  the  purely  practical  and  scien- 
tific to  the  intellectual  and  spiritual.  A  keener 
apprehensiveness  of  primary  things  has  come 
about.  A  reconstruction  of  viewpoint  is  taking 
place  in  the  realms  of  analysis.  The  honest 
searcher  for  truth  now  deliberately  goes  around  to 
see  if  there  be  not  another  than  the  phenomenal 
side.  The  suspicion  is  out  that  the  elect  have 
been  entering  the  temple  of  truth  at  the  back  door. 
Students  of  phenomena  are  having  their  attention 
called  to  a  class  of  facts  which  compel  a  new 
hypothesis  concerning  them.  Those  who  have 
thought  their  work  done  when  they  have  classified 
phenomena,  and  have  demonstrated  the  modes  of 
their  action,  have  been  mistaken.  They  now  walk 
among  the  extra-physical  and  the  extra-human 
forces.  They  are  held  by  the  hush  of  sacred  things. 
They  walk  softly  while  nature  speaks  to  them 
through  her  laws,  which  are  as  clear  in  their  ac- 
tion as  the  motions  of  the  human  intellect.  The 
known  forces  of  the  universe  may  now  be  har- 
nessed in  any  little  shop. 

54 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

Whether  or  not  the  modes  by  which  spirit 
concretes  itself  is  on  the  point  of  discovery,  science 
surely  sees  something  very  great  in  every  sensuous 
thing.  And  matter  is  none  the  less  phenomenal 
after  it  is  found  inlaid  with  a  great  spirit  process. 
How  keen  the  sense  of  the  growing  forces  of 
nature  just  now!  What  a  vivid  feeling  among 
educated  people  that  both  life  and  being  are  best 
interpreted  under  the  idea  of  a  universal  spirit 
immanence!  Nature  in  its  inward  action  is  being 
lifted  toward  a  positive  fellowship  with  the  human 
life.  And  this  whole  tendency  has  not  a  particle 
of  mysticism  about  it.  Research  now  holds  itself 
strictly  to  the  study  of  phenomena  for  that  which 
may  be  known  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  being,  first 
empirically,  then  reflectively.  The  religion  of  the 
future  must  include  some  of  its  findings.  If  a 
spirit  world  has  been  set  into  intimate  corre- 
spondence with  man's  spirit  nature,  then  he  is  in 
positive  fellowship  with  everything  about  him. 
In  the  fullness  of  that  fellowship  he  must  meet 
the  divine.  Worship  can  not  be  made  a  side  issue. 
It  must  be  brought  into  the  center  of  all  motives 
and  actions — it  must  control  his  understandings 
and  sway  him  fundamentally,  because  its  elements 
surround  him  everywhere. 
55 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Reality  of  Spirit. 

In  the  last  known  physical  test  the  student  of 
phenomena  is  still  left  with  a  profound  sense  of 
the  presence  of  an  inward-working  law,  which  de- 
termines the  states  and  forms  of  matter.  His 
reason  can  not  grasp  the  scope  and  greatness  of 
the  power  which  is  adequate  to  that  which  he 
sees,  but  he  knows  that  something  is  doing  all  the 
while.  The  larger  meaning  of  any  object  lies  below 
its  first  sensuous  impact.  We  may  take  up  any- 
thing and  ask,  "What  is  that?"  And  we  may 
ask  that  it  be  distinguished  from  other  things, 
and  then  make  the  further  inquiry  about  its  uses 
and  purposes;  but  the  health  and  strength  of  the 
human  intellect  demands  more  than  that  about 
anything.  What  are  all  things  made  of,  and  what 
are  they  for?  The  intellect  demands  some  unity 
of  concept.  It  needs  what  it  feels  to  be  the  funda- 
mental grasp.  The  true  judgment  of  any  one 
object  depends  on  a  right  understanding  of  the 
nature  of  all  objects.  The  regal  capacity  for  knowl- 
edge consists  not  so  much  in  seeing  the  properties 
of  an  object  analytically  as  in  being  able  to  see 
all  the  known  properties  in  their  places  for  whole- 
ness of  apprehension.  The  stability  of  the  human 
life  depends  on  sound  generalizations  of  truth. 

56 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

"I  am  convinced  that  in  the  next  century 
there  will  be  a  state  of  science  in  which  the  known 
will  be  conceived  as  peopled  with  powers  whose 
existence  is  justly  and  necessarily  inferred  from 
the  knowledge  which  has  been  obtained  from  their 
manifestations."  (Shaler.)  "All  things  cover  some 
mystery;  phenomena  are  only  veils."  (Sabatier.) 
"There  is  more  hidden  force  in  existence  than 
experience  has  hitherto  revealed  to  us."  (Hoff- 
ding.)  "So  far  as  our  knowledge  of  nature  goes, 
the  whole  momentum  of  it  carries  us  onward  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  unseen  world  .  .  .  has  a 
real  existence."  (Fiske.)  "Concerning  the  es- 
sence of  matter,  the  most  exacting  caution  freely 
admits  the  reality  of  something  which  yields 
the  phenomena  universally  ascribed  to  matter." 
(Winchell.)  "The  conditions  which  surround  a 
rational  being  living  anywhere  on  the  globe  are 
such  as  to  cause  him  irresistibly  to  infer  the 
existence  of  spirit."  (Ward.)  "Underneath,  in 
the  universal  consciousness,  there  lies  the  insight 
that  in  some  way  sees  that  mind  is  different  from 
matter,  and  that  behind  matter  is  something  not 
matter,  and  out  of  which  mind  and  soul  have 
emerged  and  to  which  they  are  responsible." 
(Grosscup.)  "Nature's  forms  are  brought  about 
57 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

by  an  internal  and  primordial  force."  (Naudin.) 
"Back  of  the  instruments  which  we  see  are  other 
instruments,  not  of  matter,  but  of  mind  and 
spirit."  (McConnell.)  "May  there  not  be  a 
great  degree  of  open-mindedness  to  the  light  of 
truth  in  its  attitude,  and  by  a  method  which  takes 
into  account  the  data  of  spirit?"  (Storms.)  "The 
physical  is  covered  over  its  whole  area  by  the 
spiritual,  as  the  elastic  atmosphere  covers  over  its 
whole  area  the  surface  of  the  sea — the  atoms 
which  constitute  matter'  become  the  vehicles  of 
the  forces  which  are  non- material."  (Fitchett.) 
"It  is  only  in  times  of  deep  experience  that  the 
veil  of  the  commonplace  is  lifted,  and  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  eternal  verities  which  lie  beneath 
the  surface  of  our  everyday  lives."  (Kuhns.) 
"What  is  the  true  hierarchy  of  existence?  Does 
the  pathway  lead  up  from  man,  and  his  little 
spark  of  life,  to  some  immense  oversold;  and  is 
that  life  the  substance  of  the  temporary  phenomena 
which  we  call  the  world?"  (Bigelow.)  "We  are, 
perhaps,  beginning  to  understand,  not  in  a  purely 
poetical  sense,  but  in  a  very  real  one,  that  there 
may  be  around  us,  in  heaven  and  in  earth,  things 
beyond  measure,  of  which  philosophy  knows 
nothing — has  not  even  dreamed."  (Langley.) 

58 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

"All  of  us,  more  or  less,  are  led  beyond  the  region 
of  the  ordinary,  some  in  one  way,  some  in  an- 
other; we  seem  to  touch  and  have  communion 
with  that  which  is  beyond  this  visible  world." 
(Bradley.)  "It  is  eternally  true  that  the  things 
that  are  seen,  that  can  be  estimated,  numbered, 
and  labeled,  are  transitory  and  vanishing;  the 
things  that  are  not  seen,  that  must  be  discovered, 
if  at  all,  through  keenness  and  nearness  of  spir- 
itual vision — these  things  are  eternal."  (Downey.) 
"The  discovery  of  supra-sensible  forms  of  energy 
proves  that  the  limitations  of  reality  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  material  world  as  we  directly  know  it, 
but  that  there  may  be  vast  regions  of  energy 
which  can  be  inferred  or  known  only  by  its  effects 
in  the  physical  cosmos."  (Hyslop.)  "All  things 
are  but  the  vestures  and  vehicles  of  larger  things 
of  spirit  import;  the  presence  of  the  non-ma- 
terial is  ubiquitous — it  confronts  us  everywhere." 
(Jowett.)  "We  shall  gain  the  most  compre- 
hensible solution  of  the  riddle  of  existence  if  we 
conceive  the  psychical  to  be  the  inmost  center  of 
existence  and  the  material  as  an  outer  sensuous 
form  of  this  inward  life."  (Hoffding.)  "There 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  fact  that  this  world  is 
spiritual  in  its  inmost  nature.  The  spiritual  ani- 

59 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

mates  every  particle  of  matter,  and  appears  in  its 
most  beautiful  and  grandest  development  in  the 
human  soul.  The  spiritual  is  no  accidental  feature 
of  reality,  but  an  intrinsic  quality  of  its  existence, 
which  will  sure  blaze  out  in  the  course  of  the  evo- 
lution of  the  worlds.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the  revela- 
tion of  the  secret  concealed  in  the  potentialities 
of  the  elementary  conditions  of  the  universe." 
(Cams.)  Since  the  material  world  is  an  object  of 
thought,  and  potent  in  its  relation  to  immediate 
experience,  it  can  hardly  lie  in  the  same  plane  of 
reality  with  the  thought  to  which  it  appeals." 
(Santayana.)  "What  is  the  producing  cause? — 
clearly  something  akin  to  the  result.  A  man 
generates  a  man;  a  plant  produces  another  plant 
like  itself.  There  is  therefore  implied  in  the  re- 
sulting thing  a  productive  force  distinct  from  the 
matter  upon  which  it  works."  (Cocker.)  "Spirit 
is  conceived  as  something  existing  where  it  is 
not  conscious."  (Baldwin's  Dictionary.)  "The 
soul  is  one  throughout  and  indivisible."  (Biram.) 
"There  is  a  science  of  the  invisible  as  well  as  the 
visible."  (Latimer.)  "The  mother  sea  of  reality 
beyond."  (James.)  "Behind  all  manifestations, 
inner  and  outer,  there  is  a  power  manifested;  while 
the  nature  of  that  power  can  not  be  known,  while 

60 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

we  lack  the  faculty  of  forming  even  the  dimmest 
conception  of  it,  yet  it  is  the  universal — the  ab- 
solute fact  about  which  there  can  be  no  relative 
fact."  (Spencer.)  "This  world  has  its  roots  in 
an  invisible  and  impicturable  world  of  power  and 
possibility  of  purpose,  and  the  reason  for  all 
spatial  and  temporal  manifestation  must  ulti- 
mately be  sought  in  the  world  of  power."  (Bowne.) 

Simon  Newcomb  time  and  again,  in  his  studies, 
hints  at  more  than  a  physical  sphere;  but  he 
ventures  only  an  opinion  about  it.  He  bows  him- 
self out  of  the  discussion  in  the  usual  way — "There 
is  no  scientific  knowledge  beyond  the  visible 
frame."  The  common  blunder  is  to  look  into  the 
beyond  for  the  spiritual. 

We  determine  through  phenomena,  by  reflec- 
tion and  insight,  whether  or  not  the  universe  is 
grounded  in  an  invisible  reality.  We  do  not  look 
away  into  the  sky  of  abstraction.  We  are  able  to 
apprehend  a  determinate  nature — a  causative  prin- 
ciple in  things.  The  sensuous  world  in  every  part 
of  it  is  a  manifestation  of  the  cosmic  mind  at  work. 
But  this  great  fact  of  positive  knowledge,  reflect- 
ively derived,  is  not  to  be  understood  as  an  ab- 
solute principle.  It  is  nature's  kinship  which 
makes  possible  the  advance  of  knowledge.  It  in- 
61 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

vites  to  companionship  but  not  to  worship.  It 
is  the  way  of  approach  to  the  Divine  immanence, 
from  which  it  must  be  distinguished. 

The  Question  of  Unity. 

If  the  energy  of  matter  is  spirit,  what  kind  of 
wholeness  of  view  can  we  have  about  it?  Does  it 
contravene  the  modern  demand  for  unity?  Is  an 
ultimate  one  substance  either  a  possibility  or  a 
need?  Hseckel  sees  two  laws — the  chemical  law  of 
the  constancy  of  matter,  and  the  physical  law  of 
the  constancy  of  force — and  in  the  unity  of  these 
he  sees  the  law  of  substance.  Matter,  to  his  mind, 
is  an  entity,  but  he  distinguishes  force  from  mat- 
ter. Force  is  the  living  energy,  unchangeable,  never 
extinguished — a  manifest  constant  in  the  chemis- 
tries, in  physics,  in  organisms. 

His  law  of  substance  has  a  dualistic  base.  He 
invents  the  word  hylozoism  to  express  the  idea 
that  the  ultimate  substance  has  two  fundamental 
attributes.  As  matter  it  occupies  space;  as  energy 
it  is  endowed  with  sensation.  It  has  a  phenomenal 
and  a  non-phenomenal  side.  It  is  a  clear-cut, 
dualistic  monism — if  anybody  knows  what  that 
means.  Professor  Ladd  insists  on  an  ultimate 
unity  in  reality  as  the  self-consistent  source  of  all 

62 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

existence.  He  perceives  the  two  immovable  dis- 
tinctions on  which  experience  is  based.  These 
have  unity  and  a  common  ground  of  thought  as 
the  body  and  mind  have;  but  he  has  no  expecta- 
tion that  another  substance  will  be  envisaged  as 
existing.  The  unity  of  the  two  existences  is  the 
only  possible  ground  for  a  rational  system  of  the 
sciences.  The  everlasting  two-sidedness  of  things 
is  a  fact  which  must  stand  above  any  desirable 
theory.  The  interactions  of  matter  and  spirit  do 
not  appear  to  project  into  any  further  impersonal 
reality.  If  unity  is  a  requirement  of  scientific 
thinking,  it  must  not  be  forced;  it  must  not  be  dis- 
parate with  the  facts  of  nature.  The  system  may 
be  one  and  all  the  rest  experience.  Professor  Hoff- 
ding  has  written  a  definition  of  unity  which  ap- 
pears to  answer  the  demands  of  both  philosophy 
and  science:  "A  force  or  power  in  virtue  of  which 
everything  which  is  and  anything  which  happens 
is  interconnected,  is  held  together  in  a  relation 
of  continuity."  Then  relatedness  is  necessary  to 
the  sense  of  unity.  One  ultimate  primal  substance 
must  be  unrelated,  because  it  could  not  have 
anything  co-ordinate  with  it.  Two  primal  entities 
constitute  the  necessary  conditions  of  relatedness, 
and  they  give  expression  to  a  kind  of  unity  which 

63 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

does  not  disregard  the  facts  of  experience.  "The 
duality  of  two  kinds  of  objects,  and  the  incom- 
parability  of  their  qualities  and  changes  of  states, 
is  also  a  part  of  the  content  of  knowledge.  In- 
deed, that  things  and  minds  are  not  the  same 
realities  is  a  truth  which  enters  into  our  ordinary, 
and  even  into  our  scientific,  convictions  more 
deeply,  and  more  comprehensively,  than  any  con- 
viction of  either  a  more  primary  or  a  higher  unity." 
(Ladd.) 

Matter  and  Spirit  Co-ordinated. 

Matter  is  a  permanent  co-ordinate  of  spirit. 
The  two  entities  are  never  separable  except  in 
thought — as  the  faculties  of  the  mind  are  only 
separable  for  analysis  and  understanding.  The 
idea  that  spirit  and  matter  are  independent  enti- 
ties is  the  traditional  thinking  about  these  two 
terms  of  being.  The  teaching  is  widespread  that 
spirit  may  animate  the  body  for  a  time,  then 
leave  it,  and  thereafter  live  apart  as  pure  spirit. 
The  evidences  to  sustain  such  a  proposition  from 
nature  or  life  are  not  forthcoming.  There  is  an 
intrinsic  cosmic  necessity  for  the  constant  union 
of  matter  and  spirit.  Facts  of  data  verify  matter. 
Facts  of  inference  verify  spirit.  The  two  classes 

64 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

of  facts  have  no  intermediary  boundary.  Where 
matter  leaves  off  and  where  spirit  begins  we  do 
not  know.  The  idea  of  a  spirit  potency  outside  or 
above .  material  substances  is  now  largely  repudi- 
ated by  scholarship.  "The  principle  in  which  all 
relations  are  ultimately  summed  up,  and  which  is 
the  basis  of  the  unity  of  nature,  can  not,  there- 
fore, be  transcendent  to  sensible  reality."  (Berg- 
son.)  Spinoza  had  the  idea  that  bodily  substance 
and  thinking  substance  were  separate  entities, 
and  that  they  did  not  react  at  all.  He  thought  of 
them  as  confederated,  but  mutually  independent. 
He  could  not  see  how  the  testimony  of  the  senses 
could  have  any  validity  as  proofs  of  that  which 
was  not  sensuous.  He  could  not  conceive  of  the 
non-existence  of  an  invisible  power,  but  on  the 
positive  side  he  could  not  see  that  power  through 
the  sensible  attributes  of  things.  The  error  with 
him  hinged  on  his  adhesion  to  the  idea  of  sepa- 
rateness.  An  ultra-material  world  is  a  tradition. 
An  ultra-spirit  world  is  a  tradition.  We  have 
belief  and  theory  and  doctrine  in  plenty.  We 
have  no  knowledge  of  pure  spirit,  or  crass  dead 
matter.  Even  Berkeley  says,  "Such  is  the  nature 
of  spirit,  or  that  which  acts,  that  it  can  not  of 
itself  be  perceived,  only  by  the  effects  which  it 
5  65 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

produceth."  That  is,  the  effect  of  a  spirit  potency 
is  some  phase  of  matter.  A  sensation  and  a  spirit 
manifestation  both  appear  from  the  same  object 
at  the  same  time.  The  action  is  sensed.  The 
spirit  is  manifested.  Knowledge  has  its  begin- 
nings and  its  progress  in  a  world  of  concrete  things. 
The  learner  starts  with  both  feet  on  the  ground, 
and  if  he  makes  sane  advances  he  must  stay  there. 
It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  sensuous  impression 
to  make  the  mind  aware,  directly,  of  a  mysterious 
immanence,  about  which  it  then  begins  to  inquire 
in  a  never  ending  way.  The  phenomenal  phases 
of  things  are  the  stiff  draperies  through  which  the 
splendors  of  the  underworld  are  conveyed  to  the 
understanding. 

That  matter  and  spirit  are  so  related  that 
they  may  coalesce  or  fly  apart  is  a  tradition  from 
which  the  modern  mind  does  not  easily  free  itself. 
How  fondly  the  thousands  cling  to  the  idea  that 
the  spirit  life  may  be  isolated  and  lifted  above 
all  the  conditionings  of  a  world  of  matter,  and  be 
suspended  so  high  above  the  earth  as  to  make 
doubt  about  it  an  irreverence.  The  whole  vision 
is  a  mental  mirage.  If  such  an  idea  were  realized 
in  fact,  the  whole  order  of  nature,  as  we  now 
understand  it,  would  be  destroyed.  We  are  not 

66 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

acquainted  with  any  taking  apart  or  putting  to- 
gether process.  We  can  not  even  make  a  separate 
study  of  the  mind  or  the  body.  Begin  the  ex- 
clusive investigation  of  either  and  the  other  be- 
comes an  embarrassment.  Consciousness  itself  is 
always  related  to  cerebral  action.  The  out  and 
out  materialist  must  be  forever  dealing  with  in- 
vestments and  endowment  and  potential  energies, 
and  all  the  self-directing  movements  of  life.  His 
own  thought  becomes  an  entelechy  of  material 
existence.  The  concrete  expression  is  the  data  of 
the  mind  revealing  the  transcendent  truth.  Spec- 
ulation loosed  from  verifiable  sensuous  fact  is  a 
dreamy  mysticism.  The  ballast  of  the  material 
senses  is  necessary  to  any  healthful  thinking  on 
any  subject. 

Anaxagoras  is  probably  the  first  thinker  who 
gave  to  man  the  formal  proposition  that  mind  is 
the  cause  of  order  in  the  universe.  He  made 
reason  the  regulative  faculty  and  the  ground  of 
certitude;  but  reason  perceived  the  nature  of 
things  through  things  themselves.  Knowledge  does 
not  take  us  beyond  coexistence.  We  so  think  in 
sensuous  images  that  we  see  things  with  our  eyes 
shut.  The  most  complete  phases  of  subjective 
mental  action  take  place  in  a  physical  body. 

67 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Matter  is  the  transmissive  agent  of  all  we  know. 
Truth  can  not  possibly  be  so  abstracted  as  to 
have  no  reference  to  experience.  Our  dreams  are 
chorded  and  hawsered  to  what  the  mind  has 
known  of  the  world-ground.  They  build  their  ab- 
surdities in  a  concrete  world.  Hobbes  and  Locke 
discussed  the  question  of  knowledge  by  con- 
tiguity or  association.  They  saw  that  an  abstract 
truth  must  be  more  than  a  figment — it  could  not 
have  all  its  features  cut  away  from  material  sub- 
stance. 

This  universal  materialization  of  things  is  the 
deceit  of  materialism.  Knowledge  supersensuously 
conveyed  is  an  impossibility.  Cosmically,  all  men- 
tal action  is  impinged  on  a  physical  organ.  Kant's 
error,  if  we  understand  him,  lies  in  the  idea  that, 
as  science  deals  strictly  with  phenomena,  it  is  of 
no  service  in  the  determination  of  the  world  really 
as  it  is.  He  works  tremendously  under  the  notion 
of  the  separableness  of  mind  and  matter.  It  did 
not  occur  to  him  that  science  might  furnish  the 
indispensable  data  of  philosophy.  And  it  was 
not  in  his  dreams  that  it  might  contribute  the 
data  of  the  realism  of  religion. 

The  mind  has  no  conception  of  anything  dis- 
associated from  the  conditions  of  matter.  It 

68 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

yields  itself  to  the  concrete  whenever  it  makes 
truth  into  knowledge.  Such  terms  as  super- 
sensuous,  incorporeal,  pure  spirit  are  language  in- 
ventions made  in  a  time  of  very  limited  knowl- 
edge of  nature's  ways,  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
mind,  which  makes  of  matter  a  permanent  co- 
ordinate. 

"Matter  and  mind  are  united  by  the  kinship 
of  a  common  origin;  and  it  is  impossible  to  form 
an  intelligible  conception  of  mind  without  invest- 
ing it  with  the  material  attributes  of  extension; 
so  it  is  impossible  to  frame  any  explanation  of 
matter  which  does  not  involve  an  immaterial 
element."  (Pearson.)  "Now,  the  first  thing  to 
notice  about  spirit  and  matter  is  that,  however 
we  regard  them,  whether  as  totally  different  things 
or  as  different  aspects  of  the  same  thing,  we  only 
know  them  as  facts  in  combination."  (Illing- 
worth.)  "Power  which  does  not  reside  in  any 
material  habitation  does  not  exist.  Energy  is  not 
a  reality  apart  from  matter,  and  matter  is  not 
a  reality  apart  from  spirit."  (Rix.)  "Force  act- 
ing at  a  vacuous  distance  is  unthinkable,  or  at 
*east  incomprehensible."  (Mathew.)  "Mind  is 
always  associated  with  matter."  (Van  Norden.) 
"There  is  no  form  of  energy  separate  from  mat- 
69 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

ter."  (McConnell.)  "  Conception  must,  be  empty 
without  the  matter  supplied  by  sense."  (Wenley.) 
"We  can  not  have  any  knowledge  of  anything 
which  lies  outside  the  world  of  possible  experience." 
(Munsterberg.)  "It  is  impossible  for  any  or- 
ganic being,  including  man,  to  produce  any  effect 
whatever  on  matter,  except  through  the  agency 
of  material  force.  Mind,  with  all  its  superiority 
over  matter,  can  not  move  an  atom  but  by  the 
agency  of  matter."  (Armstrong.)  "We  have  no 
means  of  describing  our  internal  states  except  by 
the  use  of  physical  figures."  (Bowne.)  "There 
is  in  human  nature  an  ingrained  naturalism  and 
materialism  of  mind  which  can  only  admit  of  facts 
that  are  actually  tangible."  (James.) 

Some  of  the  later  experiments  in  wireless  te- 
legraphy show  that  something  closely  resembling 
matter  passes  out  with  the  cathode  ray  from  the 
conductor.  Professor  Crookes  exhausted  the  air 
from  the  X-ray  tube  to  the  millionth  of  an  atmos- 
phere. The  gas  then  seemed  to  take  on  a  new 
character,  which  he  named  radiant  matter,  or 
matter  in  the  fourth  estate,  which  is  the  emana- 
tion of  the  cathode  ray.  But  when  the  exhaustion 
went  beyond  the  millionth  of  an  atmosphere  the 
electric  current  would  not  pass  through  the  tube. 

70 


THE  ULTIMATE  KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

Experiments  like  these,  which  represent,  prob- 
ably, the  finalities  of  research,  have  for  these 
pages  a  philosophic  significance.  So  far  as  we 
know  the  very  last  limit  of  knowledge  has  a  ma- 
terial content. 

Idolatries. 

The  co-ordinations  of  matter  and  spirit  help 
to  an  understanding  of  the  idolatries  of  the  world. 
The  crass  worship  of  the  image  is  not  a  very  large 
feature  of  the  world's  religious  life.  Normally 
the  image  is  a  symbol.  The  low  mind  of  the 
savage  occasionally  gets  waterlogged  with  the 
symbol;  and  there  are  individuals  among  all  ethnic 
peoples  who  say  the  idol  is,  rather  than  that  it 
represents,  the  worshipful  power:  but  these  are 
exceptions,  and  ought  to  be  charged  to  stupidity. 
Religion,  over  the  earth,  is  a  spontaneity — that  is, 
it  arises  out  of  a  primary  impulsion  of  the  human 
spirit.  It  shows  itself  everywhere,  and  does  not 
die  out  anywhere.  Like  the  other  instincts,  it  is 
deathless  in  history.  The  issues  about  it  are  not 
concerning  the  fact  of  it — that  is  settled.  Nor 
does  the  future  involve  any  doubt  about  a  re- 
ligious destination  of  the  race.  The  religious 
problems  of  the  world  are  questions  of  its  prin- 

71 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

ciples  and  the  ways  in  which  its  radicals  of  truth 
have  become  matters  of  knowledge.  Idolatry  is  a 
first  stage  in  the  evolution  of  religion.  Under- 
neath its  forms  is  the  feeling  after  God.  It  is  the 
best  that  type  of  mind  can  do  for  itself.  It  van- 
ishes inevitably  with  the  advance  of  knowledge. 
It  is  not  so  degrading  as  has  been  described. 
Overmuch  has  been  made  of  the  case  against  it. 
It  is  a  mandible  of  power  for  a  darkened  mind. 
The  Greek  mind  broke  with  its  idolatries  as  soon 
as  somebody  climbed  to  the  heights  of  Olympus 
and  discovered  that  the  gods  did  not  live  there, 
and  yet  for  generations  afterwards  Greek  cities 
were  ornamented  with  sculptured  images  of  the 
divine  idea. 

An  idol  contains  the  generic  abstract.  The 
worshiper  uses  it  as  a  method  of  mental  approach 
to  some  conceived  phase  of  spirit  being.  An  im- 
pulsion and  a  necessity  is  involved.  The  first  is 
the  headlong  drive  toward  the  unseen,  and  the 
second  is  the  grip  of  the  physical.  Sad  and  regret- 
ful as  are  many  of  its  forms,  it  has  in  it  an  under- 
current of  reason.  It  ought  not  to  be  coercively 
put  out  of  action.  It  could  not  be,  because  its 
roots  are  cosmically  set  in.  A  fish  could  not  be 
made  to  abolish  the  sea.  An  idol  expresses  the 

72 


THE   ULTIMATE  KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

struggle  of  a  child  mind  to  grip  the  reverent  idea. 
When  Phidias  made  his  statue  of  Jupiter,  he 
defended  himself  against  idolatry  by  saying  that 
such  a  conjunction  of  art  and  power  represented 
that  which  is  invincible  and  inexpressible.  Wil- 
liam Erskine  states  the  case  of  the  Brahmin  in 
his  idolatry  in  this  way:  "The  mind,  lost  in  medi- 
tation and  fatigue,  in  pursuit  of  something  which, 
being  divested  of  all  sensible  qualities,  suffers  the 
thought  to  wander  without  finding  a  resting  place, 
is  happy,  they  tell  us,  to  have  an  object  on  which 
human  feelings  and  human  sense  may  find  repose." 
It  was  the  custom  among  certain  savage  tribes 
in  America  to  take  their  young  men  approaching 
the  manhood  age  and  drive  them  into  the  soli- 
tude of  the  forest.  Each  one  must  go  alone  and 
remain  there  the  allotted  number  of  days.  The 
belief  was,  as  he  was  about  to  take  on  him  the 
spirit  of  a  brave,  it  would  be  good  for  him  to  go 
away  and  have  some  things  out  with  himself.  He 
was  not  born  a  full  Indian,  but  must  become  one 
in  the  tremendous  struggle  to  realize  what  tribal 
honor  and  tribal  devotion  meant.  His  savage 
nature  then  made  a  journey,  not  into  the  forest, 
but  into  an  underworld  of  spirit.  He  appropriated 
to  himself  only  that  aspect  of  the  cosmos  of  which 

73 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

he  was  capable.  He  measured  his  powers  against 
all  the  reality  he  knew,  and  let  us  suppose  it  had  its 
absolute  values  for  him.  His  outreaching  is  in 
the  dark,  but  in  the  right  direction.  Any  lack  of 
formal  understandings  of  the  being  of  God  must 
not  be  made  to  stand  between  his  spirit  and  its 
bottom  necessity,  which  is  a  spirit  fellowship  with 
a  spirit  universe.  He  does  not  worship  as  the 
uplifted  mind  understands  worship,  but  he  has 
been  cosmically  magnetized  as  only  a  savage  can 
be,  and  the  fact  becomes  an  element  of  strength 
in  his  nature.  On  his  way  back  to  camp  he  selects 
for  his  totem  the  first  live  thing  he  sees,  and  that 
becomes  the  ancillary  of  his  savage  devotions. 
In  all  this  primitive-mindedness  the  human  spirit 
appears  to  be  pathetically,  ceaselessly  beating  its 
way  out  toward  God.  And  the  most  despairing 
fact  of  life  is  the  time  already  consumed  and  the 
struggle  not  yet  ended. 

The  obligations  of  intelligence  are  to  carry 
knowledge  to  the  mind  which  bows  down  to  idols, 
and  lift  its  capacities  towards  the  higher  pictur- 
able  forms,  to  an  understanding  of  the  true  nature 
of  symbols,  because  the  purest  conceptions  in  de- 
votion are  yet  envisaged  verities. 

74 


THE   ULTIMATE   KNOWABLE  REALITY. 

Fraternal  Symbols. 

About  every  other  man  or  woman  we  meet 
these  days  wears  an  emblem  of  some  kind.  It  is 
a  big  "G"  with  compass  and  square  and  triangle, 
or  three  golden  links,  or  an  elk's  head,  or  an  eagle 
and  bow  and  arrow  and  pipe  of  peace,  or  a  skull 
with  cross  swords,  or  a  shield  with  anchor,  or  a 
globe  with  a  Hebrew  tent,  or  a  harp  and  clasped 
hands,  or  a  lantern  and  signal  flags,  or  a  cross 
and  ivy  wreath.  Of  the  same  nature  are  paintings, 
pictures,  crucifixes,  swinging  censers,  candelabra, 
fasts,  penances,  pilgrimages,  sacraments,  seals, 
flags,  escutcheons.  These  are  made  use  of  by 
people  of  broad  understanding,  who  assess  them 
at  their  true  psychological  value.  They  are  the 
familiar  evidences  that  the  human  mind  is  set  in 
a  material  matrix  in  which  it  does  its  work  and 
gets  its  knowledge  and  makes  its  advances.  Man 
is  a  truth  seeker  with  his  feet  on  the  ground.  By 
that  fact  he  is  steadied  in  the  deepest  grasp  he 
may  have  of  the  nature  of  causation. 


75 


CHAPTER  III. 

MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

A  Brain  Not  Necessary  to  Ideas. 

THE  notion  that  the  human  brain,  or  some 
kindred  organ,  is  the  only  possible  thinking  ap- 
paratus has  no  scientific  standing.  Even  the 
human  intelligence  is  not  localized  in  the  brain. 
At  most,  the  human  mind  has  only  its  reflective 
and  executive  centers  there.  Mind  so  pervades 
the  whole  body  that  the  functional  action  of  any 
part  implies  the  co-ordinate  action  of  all  other 
parts;  and  intelligence  there,  in  the  wholeness  of 
its  action,  is  not  radically  unlike  the  intelligence 
of  the  natural  world.  The  human  spirit  is  known 
to  be  in  constant  reaction  with  a  nature  of  things 
very  much  like  itself — and  from  that  fact  arises 
the  capacity  for  knowledge  getting  in  its  broader 
generalizations.  The  inner  personal  world  and 
the  outer  are  not  alien.  The  basal  unity  of  all 
reality  is  a  spirit  co-ordination  with  matter. 
Spirit  is  the  distinguishing  term  which  stands  for 
an  essence — the  ultimate  knowable  manifesta- 

76 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

tion — as  the  ether  is  probably  the  basal  generaliza- 
tion of  the  material  universe.  Spirit  is  pure  in- 
telligence. Mind  is  the  administrative  differen- 
tial of  spirit  being.  There  is  a  power  in  matter  to 
definitely  direct  its  motions.  Mere  existence,  or 
mere  force,  with  an  equal  inclination  to  act  in  all 
directions,  would  be  a  nullity.  There  is  "a  seeing 
force  which  runs  things."  Carpenter  says,  "The 
source  of  all  power  is  mind."  Whoever  has  to  do 
with  the  sciences  has  to  do  with  an  order  and  a 
system.  Whoever  takes  the  measurements  of 
matter  to  the  thousandth  part  of  an  atom  notes 
with  wonder  the  last  calculable  particle.  An 
electrified  corpuscle  shows  the  presence  of  a  name- 
less supremacy  so  clearly  that  the  material  feature 
of  it  is  of  secondary  interest.  Scholarship  is  being 
challenged  at  the  point  of  the  last  analytic  particle 
to  consider  the  heretofore  inscrutable — to  have 
some  kind  of  understanding  with  a  new  kind  of 
fellowship.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  students 
in  special  research  keep  to  consistent  methods. 
They  have  to,  if  they  get  anywhere.  At  the 
farthest  point  of  science  nature  rings  clear.  The 
so-called  lifeless  sciences  are  not  mindless.  The 
primacy  of  mind  is  not  invalidated  by  any  form 
of  matter  known.  That  which  is  grasped  by 

77 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

thought  must  be  of  the  nature  of  thought.  Every- 
where matter  is  being  woven  into  definitely  intri- 
cate shapes,  as  woof  and  warp  are  woven  into 
the  figures  and  designs  of  the  fabric. 

In  the  long,  glorious  journeys  which  Mr.  Dar- 
win took  into  regions  where  nature's  processes 
were  most  likely  to  be  laid  bare  to  him,  he  asked 
and  answered  for  himself  the  ultimate  human 
question.  In  explanation  of  how  things  came 
to  be,  short  of  a  First  Cause,  he  conceived  of  two 
essences,  one  of  which  had  the  power  to  begin 
action.  It  is  certain  that  matter  is  endowed  with 
active  and  indestructible  qualities.  So  far  as  we 
know,  the  connection  between  matter  and  its  en- 
dowments is  indissoluble.  It  is  a  waste  of  time 
to  talk  about  dead  matter. 

The  reality  of  matter,  aside  from  its  endow- 
ments, is  unthinkable.  Knowledge  consists  in  the 
perception  of  these  orderly  movements.  A  blind 
principle  of  action  is  repugnant.  "The  intelligence 
which  guides  things  is  not  something  external  to 
the  scheme,  clumsily  interfering  with  it,  as  we 
are  constrained  to  do  if  we  interfere  at  all;  but  it 
is  something  from  within,  inseparable  from  it,  as 
human  thought  is  inseparable  from  the  action  of 
our  brains.  In  some  partly  similar  way  we  may 

78 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

conceive  that  the  multifarious  processes  of  nature, 
with  neither  the  origin  nor  the  maintenance,  of 
which  we  have  anything  to  do,  must  be  guided  and 
controlled  by  some  thought  and  purpose,  im- 
manent in  everything,  but  revealed  only  to  those  of 
sufficiently  awakened  perceptions."  (Johnson.) 

Successful  research  implies  a  world  without 
which  has  a  nature  akin  to  the  inmost  nature  of 
the  seeking  mind.  The  universe  has  an  intelli- 
gible nature  which  true  knowledge  interprets.  No 
understanding  is  possible  between  disparate  quali- 
ties. The  human  mind,  in  the  evaluation  of  the 
ages,  has  come  to  that  degree  of  self-consciousness 
in  which  it  is  able  to  turn  about  and  seek  formal 
fellowship  and  understanding  with  that  which 
marks  the  path  of  its  evolution.  It  could  not, 
by  any  possibility,  do  this  unless  the  order  and 
connection  of  things  was  the  same  as  the  order 
and  connection  of  rational  thinking.  It  can  not 
be  claimed  that  the  human  personality  is  par- 
alleled in  nature.  Mind  there  has  other  and 
diverse  features  which  do  not  exactly  square  them- 
selves with  our  traditional  notions  of  the  term 
mind.  And  yet  there  can  be  no  experience  of 
mind  in  nature  which  would  make  rough  sailing 
with  the  sciences.  Mind  in  nature  expresses  itself 

79 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

in  natural  law.  The  law  itself  is  a  mind  potency. 
The  forms  and  states  of  matter  bend  to  mind. 
Mind  is  constructive  to  the  last  degree. 

Causation. 

The  secret  of  causation  is  now  not  very  far 
away.  If  we  know  anything  we  must  be  familiar 
with  it.  It  is  not  apart  and  above.  It  is  at  work 
among  the  bugs  and  bettles  and  angle-worms,  and 
all  lowly  things.  It  ought  to  be  as  familiar  to 
us  in  its  action  as  the  ends  of  our  fingers.  The 
child  sees  things  becoming.  The  word  force  does 
not  express  that  which  takes  place.  We  see  a 
very  gymnast  which  thrills  every  atom  of  matter, 
and  flashes  out  in  definite  directions.  We  see  a 
series  of  actions  which  the  term  mind  best  de- 
scribes. The  knowledge  we  have  of  cause  is  one 
with  the  sequences  of  science.  We  say  the  law 
of  gravity  is  the  law  of  the  inverse  squares.  That 
is  the  way  gravity  acts — that  is  science.  But  the 
cause  of  such  a  law  of  action  may  become  a  sub- 
ject of  inquiry,  and  the  inquiry  may  yield  knowl- 
edge. A  causal  agent  in  gravitation  is  a  reality. 
Its  expression  in  movements  and  physical  forms 
is  a  reality.  It  has  mastery  over  matter — it  is 
not  blind;  it  is  orderly,  it  is  intentful — these  are 

80 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

realities.  If  this  cause  is  where  it  is  active,  its 
immanence  is  a  reality.  These  are  so  many  glints 
of  light  into  the  darkness  of  a  mystery. 

To  be  employed  with  the  subject  of  causation 
is  to  seek  to  know  something  of  the  nature  of  the 
forces  which  produce  the  spectacles  in  nature. 
Incapacity  for  that  inquiry  is  incapacity  to  know 
the  real.  Reality  is  the  unfolding  spirit  power  of 
the  world.  With  every  motion  of  even  the  human 
activity  something  new  is  being  brought  into 
being.  Each  new  aspect  of  nature's  evolving  life 
is  new  to  the  universe — and  what  is  that  but  a 
creation?  The  bringing  into  being  of  something 
out  of  nothing,  instantly,  is  the  traditional  notion 
of  creation.  Whatever  may  be  the  crass  possi- 
bility of  such  a  feat,  the  modern  mind,  facing  con- 
structive powers  in  nature,  to  the  greatness  of 
which  it  has  but  little  conception,  is  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  idea.  The  over-mastering  nat- 
uralism of  the  time  does  not  think  of  creation  as 
a  drastic  shut-off,  or  an  omnipotent  fiat,  but  a 
continuous  and  orderly  dynamic  process.  In  its 
active  features  it  is  an  unfolding  system.  It  is 
not  an  extraneous  power  reaching  down  to  touch 
nothing  into  being  by  a  celestial  magic,  but  a 
ceaseless  inward  urge  to  new  forms  of  matter,  new 
6  81 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

modes  of  life,  new  relationships  of  truth.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  consider  everything  given  in 
block  in  the  beginning.  That  the  whole  of  nature 
is  eternal,  and  given  at  one  stroke,  is  a  pure  as- 
sumption and  a  pure  prejudice.  There  never  was 
a  time  when  anything  was  finished,  or  brought  to 
a  state  where  no  betterment  was  possible.  That 
would  signify  a  limitation  of  the  creative  powers. 
Always  and  with  everything  is  the  potential  of 
approach  towards  a  higher  state.  The  universe  is 
not  finished — it  is  growing.  New  worlds  added 
all  along,  new  phases  of  matter,  new  forms  of  life, 
new  creations  in  thought.  The  record  is  not  closed. 
The  creative  impulse  is  still  on.  Places  are  now 
found  where  cinders  and  ashes  are  being  made, 
but  even  there  the  cosmic  fires  are  cleaning  off  a 
place  for  the  appearance  of  life.  Over  against  the 
fact  that  the  universe  is  alive — that  it  is  not  an 
irrevocably  fixed  order,  stands  the  assurance  which 
a  great  First  Cause  has  in  its  own  ongoings.  The 
inconceivably  vast  mind  potency  which  is  the 
active  creative  principle,  which  is  bringing  into 
existence  endlessly  new  co-ordinations  with  itself, 
is  a  distinct  pledge  that  the  universe  shall  grow 
increasingly  rich  in  its  splendors;  and  at  the  same 
time  it  holds  out  to  the  human  midget  full  pro- 

82 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

Vision  for  any  fellowship  within  the  reach  of  his 
capacities. 

The  Mind  a  Body  Builder. 

What  man  is,  and  has  been,  religiously,  has 
come  about  by  the  reactions  of  the  kind  of  nature 
he  has  with  the  kind  of  a  world  he  lives  in.  A 
certain  value,  therefore,  attaches  to  the  action  of 
the  mind  on  the  physical  organ  of  the  body.  It 
is  clear  that  there  is  a  limit  to  the  direct  power 
of  the  mind  over  the  body.  We  can  not  think 
an  arm  off.  Pneumonia  or  a  case  of  rabies  can 
not  be  cured  by  force  of  will.  We  can  not  think 
a  hot  object  cold  or  a  round  one  square.  Never- 
theless, the  mind  has  a  direct  power  over  physical 
states.  The  mind  may  depress  or  inspire  the  life 
forces  of  the  body.  It  may  weaken  them  for  a 
poor  fight  against  disease,  or  strengthen  them  for 
a  strong  fight.  Extreme  mental  excitement,  when 
accompanied  with  a  decisive  action  of  the  will, 
puts  into  the  muscles  twice  the  supposed  limit  of 
their  strength.  The  muscles,  under  tense  action 
of  the  mind,  will  sustain  a  weight  which  would 
tear  dead  muscles  apart.  Would  it  be  accurate 
to  say  the  mind  exercises  a  tremendous  force  back 
of  the  flesh?  Muscular  skill  is  in  reality  mental. 

83 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  dolt  never  becomes  a  skilled  workman.  The 
mind  must  take  an  interest  in  what  the  muscles 
do  well.  That  which  the  mind  dislikes  is  never 
done  well.  The  physical  life  is  always  a  reflex  of 
the  mental  temperament.  The  body  is  always 
marked  by  the  features  of  the  pursuit  in  which 
the  mind  engages  it.  The  farmer  has  his  country 
gait,  the  physician  his  quiet  approach,  the  clerk 
his  instinct  of  polite  attentions,  the  lawyer  his 
legal  attitudes,  the  preacher  his  ministerial  air 
and  tones.  Intense  and  prolonged  attention  to 
any  pursuit  fashions  the  faculties  and  the  physical 
life  in  the  direction  of  it.  When  a  particular  class 
of  ideas  register  themselves  in  the  brain,  they 
leave  their  permanent  posits  on  the  neurons. 

In  a  sense,  the  inventor  thinks  his  mechanism 
into  being — at  least  the  destruction  of  the  idea 
would  be  the  neglect  of  the  mechanism.  A  boy 
would  drop  his  penknife  by  the  wayside,  if  his 
idea  of  it  were  gone.  The  idea  will  reproduce  a 
destroyed  mechanism.  The  will  to  execute,  me- 
chanically, works  under  the  idea.  Mechanism  is 
projected  mind.  Its  first  and  large  meaning  is  the 
outpicturing  of  thought. 

Character,  the  most  significant  product  of  the 
earth,  is  a  formation  of  creative  thought.  What 

84 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

we  think  we  are.  The  sentiments  and  feelings  we 
entertain  of  life  and  of  self  and  of  others  fasten 
the  selfhood  down.  The  libertine's  life  writes 
itself  on  his  face  and  features,  and  he  is  not  able 
to  hide  it  from  the  open  day.  The  world  knows 
what  he  has  been  thinking  about.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  love  of  knowledge,  art,  music,  or  exalted 
thinking  or  great  ambitions  are  positively  redemp- 
tive. 

Mental  Healing. 

Mental  healing  in  late  years  has  come  to  take 
a  recognized  place  in  the  therapeutic  world.  Doc- 
tor Leibault,  of  Nancy,  France,  first  introduced 
into  Europe  the  method  of  healing  by  suggestion. 
He  demonstrated  that  diseases  may  often  be 
checked  and  cured  by  suggestion.  The  science 
of  medicine  has  its  place  aside  from  suggestion, 
which  is  a  handmaid  only.  Suggestion  does  not 
always  master  the  situation,  neither  do  drugs. 
The  whole  effect  of  suggestion  goes  to  show  that 
the  psychic  and  physical  functions  are  co-ordinate 
in  the  human  body.  The  only  ones  who  dissent 
here  are  the  faith  healers.  The  mind  does  not 
lift  the  body  out  of  its  disease  ab  extra.  It  does 
not  turn  seventy  years  back  into  blooming  youth. 
85 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

It  does  not  conquer  a  constitutional  disease.  The 
physician  may  make  use  of  the  constant  inter- 
dependence and  the  mutually  related  movements 
of  the  mental  life  with  the  integrating  forces  and 
the  chemistries  of  the  body.  It  means  the  use 
of  psychic  law  by  means  of  simple  suggestion. 
The  basis  of  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  mind  to  take 
and  realize  suggestion.  Binet  and  Bernheim  have 
written  standard  works  on  the  subject,  and  thou- 
sands of  physicians  now  make  use  of  it,  and  in 
its  use  have  given  themselves  no  further  credit 
than  that  which  belongs  to  ordinary  tact.  Drugs 
do  not  cure,  anyway.  The  physician  only  removes 
obstacles.  The  cells  of  the  body  heal  and  cure. 
The  seat  of  the  healing  is  psychic.  For  instance, 
it  is  known  that  the  toxin  of  typhoid  fever  con- 
centrates itself  usually  in  the  lower  intestines. 
With  the  first  symptoms  of  the  disease,  physicians 
have  noted  with  wonder,  the  rush  of  the  white 
corpuscles  of  the  blood  to  this  region  to  begin  a 
life  and  death  struggle  with  the  poison.  The 
strategies  of  human  war  do  not  excel  in  adroitness, 
and  craft,  and  abandon  of  bravery  the  desperate 
struggle  which  these  micro-organisms  make  for 
the  health  of  the  human  body.  They  act  as  in- 
telligently as  the  trained  soldiers  of  an  army. 

86 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

Cell  resistance  to  disease — cell  reconstruction  of 
injured  parts — is  a  psychic  function  of  the  body, 
aside  from  the  formal  action  of  the  intellect  or 
the  will.  When  the  cells  go  about  their  business 
to  heal  the  body,  they  understand  what  kind  of 
material  to  use  when  they  knit  a  bone,  or  heal  a 
muscle,  or  replenish  a  loss  of  blood.  Each  cell 
knows. 

But  the  point  in  hand  is,  the  cells  are  naturally 
stimulated  in  their  work  of  healing  by  the  hopeful 
emotional  states  of  the  mind.  In  this  way  sug- 
gestion takes  its  place  among  the  curative  arts. 
If  the  imagination  is  awakened,  or  if  expectation 
is  aroused;  if  hope  and  good  cheer  find  their  way 
to  the  sick  room  a  state  of  mind  is  induced  favor- 
able to  the  best  action  of  the  cells.  The  whole 
force  of  mental  healing — the  whole  truth  of  it — 
is  cell  stimulation  through  a  confident  and  cour- 
ageous state  of  mind.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore, 
that  the  influence  of  mind  over  disease  is  direct 
and  simple.  Its  values  are  too  wholesome  to  be 
degraded  into  a  religious  cult,  and  exploited  as 
Christian  Science,  when  it  is  not  Christian  in  any 
particular  sense.  Much  of  the  world's  sickness  is 
mental.  Some  slight  ailment  brings  about  a  de- 
pressed will,  which  is  followed  by  indisposition  to 
87 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

effort,  and  directly  the  spring  of  action  is  gone 
and  the  way  is  open  for  any  indisposition  to  be- 
come intensified  and  persistent.  These  patients  do 
not  need  drugs.  They  need  what  psycho-therapy 
has  learned  of  the  power  of  the  mind  over  phys- 
ical conditions.  Many  of  them  never  take  what 
they  need,  and  they  die  professional  invalids. 

Mind  Functions  the  Brain. 

Certain  scholars  claim  to  have  demonstrated 
that  thinking  is  a  mode  of  motion.  Motion  is  a 
concomitant  of  thought,  but  not  its  cause.  When 
it  is  shown  that  particular  molecular  changes 
always  accompany  certain  classes  of  ideas,  only  a 
particular  set  of  phenomena  have  been  shown 
to  accompany  the  dissipation  of  energy,  and  no 
approach  has  been  made  towards  the  proof  that 
the  ideas  involved  in  that  change  have  occurred 
in  mechanical  fashion.  Ideas  are  not  held  in  leash 
by  the  neurons  of  the  brain.  They  hold  high  car- 
nival among  themselves.  They  track  one  an- 
other through  long  trains  of  reasoning.  They 
command  the  structure  of  the  brain,  often  in  an 
imperial  way.  They  set  its  phosphorescent  sub- 
stance aglow.  They  exhaust  it  like  a  jaded  road- 
ster, give  it  a  rest,  then  rally  it  again.  They 

88 


MIND— A  CAUSATIVE  FORCE. 

compel  it  to  its  work  and  spur  it  on.  Ideas  make 
their  permanent  marks  on  the  brain  stuff.  They 
make  it  look  like  the  uses  to  which  it  has  been 
put.  They  train  it  to  skilled  responses  along  the 
lines  of  their  preference.  They  function  its  mole- 
cules until  they  are  full  and  hardened  to  a  definite 
use,  so  that  they  are  not,  thereafter,  very  alert 
or  yielding  to  any  kind  of  service  with  which  they 
have  not  been  occupied.  Busy  men  who  have 
applied  themselves  can  not,  as  a  rule,  successfully 
take  new  trades  or  professions  after  half  the  life 
is  gone.  The  physical  organ  is  impact  with  the 
uses  which  have  been  made  of  it.  It  can  not  be 
made  over  instantly,  or  be  functioned  in  new  di- 
rections, except  under  difficulty  and  distress.  The 
reconstruction  and  resetting  of  a  professional  life 
is  a  very  painful  process  usually.  The  effort  brings 
about  cosmic  misunderstandings  in  the  human 
brain.  Matter,  as  a  yielding  substance,  has  its 
limitations.  Matter  shaped  into  a  particular  .tool 
for  a  particular  purpose  can  not  always  be  shaped 
over  into  something  else.  When  the  brain  mole- 
cules have  been  hammered  in  certain  directions  for 
years,  they  resent  the  radicalism  of  cross-cur- 
rents. They  do  not  yield  themselves  gracefully 
to  mental  movements  unlike  those  with  which 
89 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

they  have  been  loaded.  The  whole  body,  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  partakes  in  this  fashioning 
force  of  mind.  The  face,  the  eyes,  the  nose,  the 
handshake,  the  gait,  the  penmanship — all  show  a 
plastic  yielding  to  the  thinking  principle.  The 
stuff  of  the  brain  shifts  every  few  years;  but  the 
original  endowments  and  the  acquired  capacities 
and  habits  hold  over.  Memory,  habit,  artistic 
skill,  trained  intellect  disengage  themselves  from 
the  outgoing  material  and  resist  displacement  with 
the  incoming  material.  These  permanent  elements 
are  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  the  mind,  as 
a  whole,  is  physico-chemical.  The  assumption 
of  a  supreme  endowment — a  tremendous  capa- 
bility, working  from  within  outwards — seems  to 
be  the  only  adequate  explanation  of  the  facts  as 
we  find  them. 


90 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS,  BIRDS,  IN- 
SECTS, AND  PLANTS. 

THOSE  who  have  had  most  to  do  with  wild  ani- 
mals, and  are  best  acquainted  with  them,  assert, 
without  dissent,  that  they  think  and  reason.  And 
yet,  the  intelligence  of  the  animal  world  can  not 
be  judged  by  the  human  standards.  It  is  of  its 
own  kind  and  acts  in  its  own  way;  and  in  any  life 
form  it  will  be  seen  to  respond  to  the  needs  of 
that  form.  Dogs  and  cats  and  horses  do  not  show 
the  capacity  for  reflection.  They  possibly  do  not 
think  about  things  at  all.  Gauged  by  the  human 
standards,  they  are  an  inferiority.  Their  corre- 
spondences with  truth  are  more  direct,  fewer,  and 
simpler.  Yet  each  animal,  after  its  own  grade,  and 
manner  of  life,  is  brilliantly  endowed.  Animals 
and  men,  after  all,  are  placed  very  close  together. 
The  points  of  contact  are  so  many  and  of  such 
nature  that,  if  all  common  likenesses  and  parallels 
of  mental  method  were  extracted,  both  would 
instantly  perish. 

91 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  error  of  thinking  that  the 
intuitions  and  instincts  of  the  human  life  are 
animal  traits — the  dregs  of  the  evolutionary  proc- 
ess, to  be  grilled  into  silence  and  extinction  as 
soon  as  possible.  The  tendencies  of  modern  cul- 
ture have  been  to  bury  the  primal  impulsions  of 
the  soul  and  to  over-stimulate,  relatively,  the 
logical  and  perceptive  faculties.  And  for  that 
reason,  in  the  life  of  the  world  to-day,  a  second 
place  has  been  given  to  poetry  and  music  and 
art  and  architecture  and  the  realisms  of  religion. 
Cold  reason  is  king.  The  age  is  practical.  In- 
stinct is  blind.  An  emotion  is  a  weakness.  The 
natural  impulsions  of  the  human  heart  are  put 
under  such  restraint  that  the  fountains  of  its 
tenderness  threaten  to  run  dry.  We  are  building 
a  cold,  heartless  civilization.  We  shall  not,  by 
any  means,  go  back  to  the  beast,  but  greatly 
quicken  and  strengthen  all  the  high  values  of 
life  when  we  take  greater  account  of  its  cosmic 
likenesses  to  the  animal  world. 

The  instances  given  below  are  evidences  of 
mind  in  organisms.  They  furnish  proof  that  the 
same  plastic  power  has  been  at  work  on  the  animal 
and  on  the  human.  No  theory  of  detachment  is 
of  any  worth. 

92 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

Animals. 

A  dog,  trained  to  the  hunt,  will,  in  the  course 
of  the  chase,  turn  suddenly  in  scores  of  directions, 
and  with  such  intent  on  the  quarry  that  no  keep- 
ing of  directions  is  possible;  but  when  the  game 
is  captured,  or  lost,  the  dog  turns  about  to  know 
his  directions  immediately. 

A  rabbit  will  seek  out  a  place  of  safety  in  case 
of  flight,  against  the  day  when  it  is  pursued  by 
dogs  or  other  carnivora.  From  any  location  it 
knows  the  nearest  place  to  burrow  itself.  It  will 
take  great  risks  to  reach  that  place.  If  hindered, 
it  will  speed  to  another.  The  young  rabbit  will 
seek  and  examine  these  places  before  it  has  ever 
had  a  race  for  its  life.  Lapse  of  memory  is  un- 
known. The  removal  or  destruction  of  a  burrow- 
ing place  will  shortly  be  discovered.  The  trait  is 
one  of  sleepless  adroitness — an  apprehension  be- 
forehand, and  an  ancestral  transference.  The 
struggles  of  this  little,  harmless  animal  to  reach 
these  places  of  safety  are  very  vivid;  probably  for 
the  reason  that  so  many  of  its  species  have  been  so 
often  stirred  to  such  supreme  exertion  in  the  life 
crisis  of  the  chase,  where  only  swift-footedness 
survives. 

93 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

A  field  mouse,  disturbed  in  her  nest  and  obliged 
to  run  for  her  life,  takes  her  young  with  her.  At 
her  command,  a  dozen  of  them  will  fasten  them- 
selves to  her  sides  with  a  bull  dog  grip.  Then  she 
runs  with  the  whole  brood  into  any  place  of  safety 
open  to  her. 

Beavers  build  houses  in  which  they  live.  They 
shun  conditions  where  they  might  have  to  struggle 
against  floods  in  the  streams.  They  build  largely 
in  shallow  places,  and  at  the  heads  of  water- 
sheds. They  build  dams  across  streams  to  get  an 
elevation  of  still  water  in  their  houses.  When 
they  cut  a  tree  with  their  teeth  they  know  how  to 
take  advantage  to  make  a  tree  fall  the  way  they 
want  it.  They  cut  timber  above  the  dam,  pref- 
erably, because  they  know  what  logging  up  stream 
means.  When  a  break  occurs  in  a  beaver  dam, 
the  width  of  the  break  is  measured  before  the 
timber  is  cut  to  mend  it.  They  show  remarkable 
engineering  skill.  The  beaver,  dam  across  Gibbon 
River  in  Yellowstone  Park  has  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  the  great  English  dam  at  Fashoda  across 
the  Nile — that  is,  in  its  angles  of  resistance  and 
points  of  attachment  to  make  it  secure  against 
the  force  of  special  currents. 

94 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

When  the  female  antelope  is  about  to  bring 
forth  her  young,  she  haunts  the  edges  of  the 
prickly  cactus  until  she  finds  a  place  thickly 
grown.  Then  she  leaps  several  feet  into  the 
thickest  of  it  and  stamps  about  with  her  feet,  then 
leaps  out  again.  She  repeats  this  performance 
until  she  has  beaten  down  a  place  large  enough  in 
which  to  bring  forth  her  young.  The  cactus  shelter 
becomes  an  effective  protection  against  wolves  and 
coyotes,  to  whom  the  cactus  is  a  poison.  From 
this  cactus  defense  the  mother  goes  forth  during 
the  day  and  returns  at  night — leaping  each  time 
from  the  edge  to  the  hiding  place.  If  she  sees 
eagles  in  the  sky  she  stays  near,  and  if  they  dis- 
turb her  young  she  gives  fight  with  reared  body 
and  striking  hoof. 

On  the  farm,  years  ago,  our  little  child,  two 
and  a  half,  slid  down  the  front  steps  and  out  of 
doors.  The  impulsion  of  being  on  his  legs  was 
warrant  enough  for  him  to  strike  out.  As  soon 
as  he  was  missed  the  household  began  a  search. 
He  was  found  directly,  out  in  the  clover  field, 
making  headway  for  the  cows.  The  Newfound- 
land dog  had  gone  with  him,  and  was  seen  putting 
himself  in  front  of  the  child  to  hinder  his  progress; 

95 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

and  yet  he  submitted  to  being  pounded  out  of  the 
way.  Presently  a  cow  came  toward  the  two  in 
anger,  and  at  the  moment  she  was  in  the  act  of 
making  a  dash  for  them,  the  dog  whirled  and 
nipped  her  heels;  and  when  she  turned  on  him, 
he  did  the  unprecedented  thing  for  a  Newfound- 
land— he  caught  her  by  the  nose  and  held  on. 
There  was  a  bellow,  the  scream  of  a  frightened 
child,  and  the  man  of  the  house  on  the  scene 
shortly. 

Hunters  say  the  stag  weeps  when  his  last  hour 
is  approaching.  Dogs  have  been  known  to  weep 
when  the  master  goes  away.  Dolphins  shed  tears 
abundantly  at  the  moment  of  death.  An  elephant 
weeps  if  he  is  wounded  and  can  not  escape.  It  is 
not  unusual  among  domestic  cattle,  when  they 
are  hurt  severely,  or  frightened  in  capture,  for 
them  to  shed  tears.  This  is  the  expression  of  a 
wounded  and  outraged  animal  feeling.  It  is  life's 
last  awful  appeal.  "When  animals  are  in  terrible 
trouble,  and  have  done  all  that  they  can  do  and 
are  face  to  face  with  despair  and  death,  there  is 
then  revealed  to  them  an  instinct,  deep  laid,  and 
deeper  laid  as  the  animal  is  higher,  which  prompts 
them,  in  their  dire  extremity,  to  throw  themselves 

96 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

on  the  mercy  of  some  other  power,  not  knowing, 
indeed,  whether  it  be  friendly  or  not,  but  very 
sure  it  is  superior."  (Seton.)  The  death  bellow 
of  cattle  over  the  smell  of  blood  of  their  own 
kind  is  an  instance  of  the  same  deep  feeling.  Such 
nerve  racking  language  of  sorrow  can  not  be 
described  to  those  who  have  never  heard  it.  It 
is  not  like  distant  thunder,  because  that  is  inani- 
mate. The  voice  of  life  there  strikes  the  death 
chords;  and  we  wonder  if  these  animals  reflectively 
consider  what  death  means. 

Mimicry  and  Mesmerism. 

Mimicry  and  mesmerism  are  significant  psy- 
chic elements  in  the  animal  world.  Animals  play 
at  make-believe.  The  dog  plays  at  biting  the 
master's  hand.  The  cub  tiger  is  a  passionate  lover 
of  rough  play.  Young  elephants  pull  away  a  piece 
of  termite  hill,  roll  it  in  the  mud,  and  make  a 
huge  ball  of  it;  and  then  they  play  ball.  Cats 
play  with  their  tails  and  the  mice  they  catch. 
Lambs  gambol  on  the  green.  Pigs  and  calves 
have  their  outrageous  romps.  The  boss  cow  stands 
in  the  gateway  and  laughs  over  her  sovereignty. 
The  opossum,  under  a  slight  stroke,  feigns  death. 
So  do  many  bugs  and  beetles,  and  serpents  and 
7  97 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

toads,  at  times.  A  fox  will  swim  down  a  stream 
to  confuse  the  hounds  on  the  trail.  And  if  they 
get  ahead  of  him  in  the  turns  of  the  chase  he  will 
back  track.  He  will  double  on  his  own  track  to 
confuse  the  hounds.  Squirrels  make  use  of  cer- 
tain bark  resemblances  to  hide  themselves.  Many 
of  the  higher  animals  are  skilled  in  several  kinds  of 
deceit.  Certain  frogs  have  the  capacity  of  pro- 
tective coloring  for  a  moment;  they  can  take  on, 
at  will,  the  color  of  their  surroundings. 

Either  in  anger  or  in  fright,  nearly  all  animals 
and  birds,  and  many  serpents  and  insects,  have 
the  mesmeric  note.  The  squall  of  the  cat  and 
raccoon  and  panther,  the  squeal  of  the  horse  and 
the  hog,  the  bellow  of  the  bull,  the  bawl  of  the 
cab*,  the  growl  of  the  tiger,  the  roar  of  the  lion — 
these  are  familiar.  The  ignominious  little  bat  is 
able  to  assume  a  most  frightful  war  attitude,  and 
its  squeak  is  positively  galvanic.  The  common 
rabbit — a  most  defenseless  little  creature — when 
swift  running  does  not  avail,  and  when  captured, 
as  a  last  resort  utters,  often,  a  piercing  cry  so 
positively  paralyzing  in  its  effect,  that  by  means 
of  it  escape  is  often  made.  Many  a  boy  at  that 
moment  has  lost  his  nerve — and  his  game.  The 
snap  of  the  snapping  bug  has  in  it  more  than  the 

98 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

noise  and  the  motion.  Both  of  these  are  insig- 
nificant. The  mesmeric  potency  is  positive.  It  is 
clearly  a  nerve-racking  psychic  outgo. 

All  these  mesmeric  notes  are  acutely  distinct 
and  unlike.  They  are  also  sparingly  used.  They 
do  not  lose  their  effect  by  becoming  unduly  fa- 
miliar. The  undermeaning  of  this  peculiar,  and 
yet  widely  diffused,  nature  power  is  the  same 
everywhere.  It  is  a  challenge  to  unnerve  the 
enemy,  or  to  startle  and  distract  while  escape  is 
attempted. 

The  very  sight  of  a  serpent  is  positively  mes- 
meric. The  nerve-failing  effect  is  to  startle  the 
nerves  unpleasantly.  All  the  higher  animals  are 
similarly  affected.  They  shun  its  rattle  and  its 
hiss,  except  the  wild  deer,  which  has  an  impulsion 
to  hoof  it  to  death.  The  evident  use  of  this 
psychic  capacity  to  the  serpent  is  protective.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  this  nature's 
provision  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species, 
should  be  made  a  fetich  among  undeveloped 
peoples.  The  fact  is,  no  early  religion  seems  to 
be  free  from  some  form  of  serpent  worship.  It 
has  been  made  a  symbol  of  evil  in  the  Eden  story, 
and  it  was  erected  into  a  kind  of  totem  in  the 
Hebrew  camp  after  the  hejira. 
99 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Prenatal  Expectations. 

In  the  prenatal  life  of  all  the  species  of  the 
higher  animals  a  remarkable  series  of  adaptative 
and  anticipative  movements  take  place.  Legs  and 
arms  and  breathing  apparatus  and  ears  and  eyes 
and  jaws  and  teeth  and  tongue  are  all  begun  and 
rounded  out  in  the  day  of  little  use.  The  fully- 
developed  sense  organs  are  there  with  the  clearest 
expectation  of  parturition.  The  whole  prenatal 
functioning  process  is  a  getting  ready  for  other 
and  expected  life  conditions.  From  the  moment 
of  conception  premonitions  of  the  time  to  come 
utterly  possess  the  foetus. 

Birds. 

There  is  a  species  of  bird  in  the  Philippines 
which  attaches  its  nest  to  a  pendulous  limb  above 
the  water  of  a  stream.  It  builds  the  nest  of  grasses, 
and  it  is  enclosed  entirely,  except  the  opening 
through  a  long  woven  tube  hanging  below.  This 
tube  is  loosely  put  together,  so  that  serpents,  or 
other  enemies,  attempting  to  enter,  will  fall, 
through  the  breaking  of  the  pendulous  tube. 

When  the  turtle  dove  is  nesting  on  infertile 
eggs,  she  knows  when  the  time  is  up,  and  on  the 
100 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

eighteenth  day  she  leaves  her  nest  and  goes  with 
her  mate  to  build  anew. 

Many  species  of  birds  pip  the  eggs,  when 
nesting,  just  at  the  time  when  gestation  is  fin- 
ished. Could  they  do  this  without  the  idea  of 
the  completed  process? 

The  mother  quail,  to  save  her  offspring,  will 
mimic  the  cripple  to  perfection.  Her  performance 
can  not  be  a  reflex  of  experience,  for  she  never 
saw  a  quail  with  a  broken  leg  or  wing.  The  com- 
mon sense  explanation  is — when  she  faces  danger 
to  her  young,  the  mother  instinct,  sweet  and 
strong,  stirs  her  to  an  act  of  clear-cut  adroitness — 
to  the  best  defense  she  knows.  She  will  deceive  a 
dog  every  time,  and  occasionally,  with  a  quick 
spaniel,  she  loses  her  life. 

Birds  have  been  known  to  ligate  and  bandage 
their  own  wounded  limbs.  Dumonteil  says  he 
shot  a  woodcock  in  the  afternoon  of  a  day,  and 
did  not  find  it  until  next  day.  In  the  meantime  it 
had  placed  a  bandage  of  feathers  around  each 
wounded  limb.  Doctor  Wood,  a  leading  English 
naturalist,  says,  "I  think  there  can  be  but  little 
101 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

doubt  that  snipe,  at  least,  understand  the  art  of 
binding  a  broken  limb,  by  means  of  a  splint." 

Like  statements  have  been  made  by  numerous 
naturalists  and  sportsmen.  M.  Fatios'  observa- 
tions on  this  subject  were  some  time  ago  brought 
before  the  physiological  society  of  Geneva,  and  it 
was  stated  that  snipe  had  often  been  known  to 
secure  a  broken  limb  by  means  of  a  ligature. 

Carrier  pigeons  have  a  sense  of  orientation 
which  amounts  to  a  special  intelligence  of  the 
direction  of  the  home  nest.  They  have  it  with- 
out the  mediation  of  objects  or  knowledge  of  the 
points  of  the  compass.  It  is  a  direct  knowing. 
It  is  knowledge  by  immediacy.  It  is  an  animal 
telepathy.  It  is  in  some  way  sensed,  but  the 
mode  of  it  is  a  great  mystery.  "Well-trained 
pigeons,  even  if  taken  very  far  away,  say  several 
hundred  miles  from  the  pigeon  cote,  get  their 
bearings  in  a  normal  atmosphere  with  wonderful 
promptness,  without  turning  about  in  other  di- 
rections, without  rising  to  a  great  height.  Before 
one  can  count  fifty,  they  have  disappeared.  These 
same  pigeons,  left  in  the  open  air  in  their  baskets, 
several  minutes  before  releasing  them,  while  they 
are  given  food  and  drink,  look  around  them,  walk 
102 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

to  and  fro,  evidently  studying  the  sky,  until,  hav- 
ing found  out  what  they  sought,  they  remain  quiet. 
Then,  if  the  baskets  are  opened,  they  fly  low  and 
almost  horizontally,  without  zigzags  and  in  a 
straight  line,  in  the  right  direction."  (Thausies.) 
We  stand  in  awe  of  the  nature  of  such  knowledge. 

Insects. 

The  mud  wasp  places  her  cells  where  the  rains 
will  not  drench  them.  She  never  uses  the  kind 
of  mud  which  softens  when  it  dries.  When  the 
house  for  her  young  is  about  finished,  she  care- 
fully selects  spiders  and  flies,  filling  nearly  the 
whole  cavity  of  the  mud  cell.  She  gives  to  each 
insect  she  captures  a  mild  anaesthetic,  so  that  it 
will  remain  still,  and  yet  not  die  for  a  time.  Then 
she  lays  her  egg  in  the  end  of  the  cell,  stops  the 
orifice,  and  goes  about  building  another  house. 

When  the  solitary  wasp  makes  her  nest,  she 
bores  hi  the  earth  about  an  inch  deep,  and  then 
excavates  a  larger  chamber,  where  she  can  store 
her  caterpillars  for  her  young.  In  capturing  a 
caterpillar  she  gives  it  several  stings,  one  between 
each  segment,  usually,  and  waits  for  it  to  become 
still  before  she  carries  it  to  her  nest.  When  the 
103 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

egg  is  laid  she  closes  up  the  hole,  filling  the  cavity 
solidly.  Professor  Packard  saw  a  wasp  pick  up 
a  little  pebble  and  use  it  as  a  hammer  in  pounding 
down  the  dirt.  Yet  he  thinks  the  movement  has 
no  meaning  above  an  advantageous  reflex  or  a 
masterful  instinct.  Language  terms  will  not  change 
the  nature  of  that  performance.  She  goes  about 
to  do  a  thing  and  does  it. 

The  egg  of  the  ordinary  yellow  nit  fly  is 
known  to  develop  in  the  stomach  of  a  horse.  The 
fly  lays  its  eggs  on  the  legs  and  shoulders  of  the 
horse — parts  of  the  body  which  can  be  reached  by 
the  teeth  of  the  horse  in  response  to  the  itching 
sensation  produced  by  the  deposit  of  the  egg. 

When  the  little  beetle  satiris  deposits  its  eggs 
at  the  entrance  to  the  house  of  the  ground  bee 
anthropora,  it  is  with  the  future  of  that  egg  in 
view,  certainly.  From  that  place  it  fastens  itself 
first  on  the  male  bee,  then  to  the  female,  then  to 
her  egg,  and,  after  metamorphosis,  to  her  honey; 
and  from  thence  it  develops  to  the  perfect  beetle. 

Forel,  who  has  given  many  years  to  the  study 
of  ants,  says  that  we  must  not  confuse  mind  with 
consciousness.    The  intelligent  movement  of  ants, 
104 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

he  thinks,  shows  no  signs  of  consciousness.  Their 
actions,  therefore,  can  not  be  interpreted  in  terms 
of  the  human  psychology.  The  fact  appears  to 
be  at  the  disadvantage  of  consciousness,  rather 
than  the  ants;  for  they  have  memory  and  the 
sense  of  smell;  they  love,  they  hate,  and  they  are 
highly  endowed,  socially.  They  will  help  an  en-« 
tangled  comrade  out  of  a  difficulty.  In  moving  a 
particle  of  food  too  large  for  one  insect,  others  will 
help.  An  ant  will  work  for  hours  in  overcoming 
an  obstacle.  They  will  co-operate  to  expel  an 
intruder  from  the  colony.  They  go  out  on  war- 
like expeditions.  The  will  force  of  an  ant  is  clearly 
strengthened  in  successful  battle,  and  it  is  de- 
pressed and  discouraged  by  defeat.  Like  a  de- 
moralized army,  panic  will,  at  times,  seize  a  whole 
colony,  and  the  flight  will  be  unnecessary  and 
cowardly.  The  law  of  the  colony  is  absolute  in 
each  insect.  In  any  time  of  forage  or  war  the 
whole  number  can  be  depended  on. 

Forel  took  a  handful  of  ecitons  hundreds  of 
miles  from  where  he  found  them  and  placed  them 
on  the  ground,  and  in  five  minutes  they  had  gath- 
ered up  their  effects,  the  larvae,  and  had  arranged 
themselves  in  file  to  begin  a  systematic  search 
for  a  new  place  suitable  for  a  home. 
105 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Several  eminent  naturalists  have  noted  the 
companionship  between  caterpillars  and  ants.  The 
ants  will  run  around  and  over  the  caterpillars 
without  the  expected  disturbance  in  a  contact  of 
different  species.  The  larvae  of  the  caterpillar  will 
often  be  found  in  the  nests  of  the  ants.  The  ants 
do  not  molest  them,  while  they  carry  out  other 
foreign  substances.  The  caterpillar  secretes  a 
viscous  fluid,  which  the  ants  delight  to  feed  upon. 
It  is  an  arrangement  by  which  the  ant  gets  food 
and  the  caterpillar  gets  protection. 

No  dead  timber  is  found  in  the  forests  of  upper 
inland  Africa.  The  African  ant  devours  all  wood 
fiber  as  soon  as  it  dies.  This  wood  ant,  according 
to  Drummond,  is  the  feeder  of  the  soil  of  Africa, 
as  the  angle-worm  is  in  America.  The  African 
ant  protects  itself  from  its  enemies  with  great 
adroitness.  The  whole  inside  parts  of  a  log  or 
other  dead  timber  will  be  eaten  out  before  there 
are  any  signs  of  the  devouring  insect  on  the  out- 
side. A  permanent  wooden  house  in  that  region 
is  impossible.  The  insects  enter  fallen  timber 
from  the  ground.  To  reach  the  dead  limbs  of 
standing  trees  they  protect  themselves  by  building 
a  covered  causeway  from  the  ground  over  the 
106 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

bark  of  the  standing  tree,  and  from  the  ground 
to  the  desired  limb. 

The  saubas,  or  leaf-cutting  ants  of  the  Amazon 
valley,  are  skillful  agriculturalists.  They  cultivate 
the  fungus  on  which  they  live.  Their  dwelling 
places  are  veritable  underground  gardens.  The 
leaf  fragments  which  they  carry  below  with  them 
are  not  food  for  the  colony  directly,  but  for  the 
fungus.  They  train  it  to  grow  in  filaments  along 
the  sides  of  their  dwellings.  When  a  new  colony 
is  to  be  established,  some  female  carries  a  pellet 
of  the  fungus  to  start  the  new  growth. 

Who  has  not  been  excited  to  wonder  by  the 
ballooning  spiders — say  on  an  October  day  in  the 
fields?  They  climb  to  the  tops  of  fence  posts,  or 
of  the  tallest  weeds,  and  dextrously  throw  out 
into  the  air  long,  sinuous  filaments,  and  by  means 
of  several  of  these,  undercaught  by  the  currents 
of  air,  they  are  lifted  and  transported,  often 
great  distances  before  alighting.  If  the  wind  is 
strong,  and  the  intimations  are  that  the  little 
aeronaut  is  being  carried  too  far  afield,  it  will 
begin  hand  over  hand  to  pull  in  the  long  filaments 
until  it  slowly  descends  to  the  ground. 
107 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Netter,  of  Paris,  makes  some  remarkable  state- 
ments about  the  intelligence  of  bees.  He  says 
that  they  make  the  maximum  amount  of  honey 
in  the  minimum  amount  of  time.  Different  species 
of  flowers  are  apportioned  out  among  themselves. 
The  number  of  bees  engaged  in  the  ventilation  of 
the  hive  is  increased  exactly  as  the  amount  of  honey 
is  increased.  He  says  this  is  only  a  mathematical 
reflex — an  action  like  the  closing  of  the  eye  with  a 
motion  toward  it.  The  bee  does  that  which  its 
nervous  organism  fits  it  to  do.  Very  well,  it  is 
an  organization  at  least  finely-equipped.  Forel 
is  of  the  opinion  that  bees  have  minds — that 
their  action  can  not  be  a  mere  automatic  ac- 
tivity. Vision  and  its  memories  do  not  furnish 
a  satisfactory  account  of  the  power  of  orientation 
exhibited  by  bees.  When  a  bee  has  made  thou- 
sands of  gyrations  among  the  underbrush  and 
flowers,  its  vision  of  general  direction  is  lost.  But 
it  will  rise  and  get  its  sense  of  direction  in  the 
time  of  a  second.  Bees  and  wasps  and  hornets 
sense  the  direction  of  a  missile.  Any  country  boy 
knows  better  than  to  stand  in  the  open  and  throw 
a  stone  or  an  apple  close  to  a  hornet's  nest. 

Bees  have  the  spirit  of  self-effacement  for  the 
colony.  The  workers  fight  for  the  hive  with  ab- 
108 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

solute  fearlessness.  The  stinging  point  of  the 
insect  is  a  life  offering.  If  honey  for  the  winter 
hive  has  not  been  secured,  or  has  been  taken 
away,  the  workers  will  feed  the  queen  and  die 
themselves  of  starvation. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the  glow-worm 
produces  its  given  amount  of  light  with  one-fiftieth 
of  the  energy  expended  on  that  amount  of  artificial 
light.  It  excels  all  optical  instruments  and  ap- 
pliances. And  yet  the  glow-worm  has  no  brain. 
What  it  does  is  the  executive  act  of  pure  atten- 
tion. It  does  not  have  to  pass  muster  of  any  con- 
fusion of  desires.  It  is  not  disturbed  with  present 
or  prospective  interests.  It  has  no  fear  of  failure. 
These  are  brain  weaknesses.  The  glow-worm 
light  is  a  splendid  little  piece  of  cosmic  mind. 

Plant  Life. 

In  vegetable  life  we  probably  have  to  do  with 
psychic  movements  which  are  not  conscious.  They 
need  not  be.  Consciousness  is  not  a  constant  hi 
the  human  life.  But  the  sensitive  plant  has  a 
strangely  human  reaction  against  outside  inva- 
sions. A  tree  bent  downwards  will  show  dis- 
quietude and  struggle  towards  an  upright  position. 
House  plants  reach  out  towards  the  light  with  a 
109 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

yearning  as  distinct  as  a  babe's  cry  for  food.  The 
psyche  of  the  plant  is  not  far  removed  from  the 
psyche  of  the  insect  and  the  animal.  "There  is 
nothing  unscientific  in  classing  plants  and  animals 
together  from  a  psychological  standpoint.  In  this 
I  rely  on  the  opinion  of  a  well-known  psychologist, 
Mr.  James  Ward,  who  reaches  the  conclusion  thai 
it  would  be  scarcely  going  too  far  to  say  that 
Aristotle's  conception  of  a  plant  soul  is  tenable 
to-day."  (Darwin,  Jr.)  "Plants  possess  only 
that  kind  of  a  soul  by  which  they  are  nourished." 
(Caesalpino.)  "The  total  response  of  plants  to  out- 
side stimuli  is  equal  to  that  of  animals."  (Stack- 
pole.)  Plants  have  a  will  to  execute.  They  taste 
and  see  and  feel.  When  the  leaves  of  the  bean 
plant,  or  when  blades  of  corn,  are  being  pained  by 
too  much  sunlight,  they  turn  their  edges  so  that 
less  rays  strike  them.  A  human  being  lifts  an 
umbrella  for  the  same  reason.  The  leaves  of 
plants  spread,  facing  the  sun,  when  they  need  it. 
They  recognize  light  and  the  direction  from  which 
it  comes.  They  have  the  sense  of  direction,  there- 
fore. They  discriminate  in  taste.  They  feel  the 
slightest  wound.  They  are  influenced  by  electric 
currents.  Broken  roots  and  limbs  display  the 
same  features  that  broken  bones  and  wounded 
110 


PSYCHIC  VALUES  IN  ANIMALS. 

flesh  display.  The  roots  of  all  plants  are  able  to 
direct  their  growth  towards  the  moist  places  in 
the  soil.  The  sundew  plant  is  a  trap  to  catch 
insects.  Any  other  small  object  put  against  the 
tentacles  of  the  leaf  will  be  enclosed,  but  a  little 
later  it  will  be  released.  A  fly  placed  in  possible 
reach  of  the  leaf  will  cause  a  motion  towards  the 
insect  to  secure  it. 

The  cynips  punctures  a  leaf  tissue.  The  wound 
it  produces  is  no  more  than  a  pin  point  would 
make,  and  the  leaf  would  heal  without  a  scar.  But 
the  leaf  becomes  malformed,  and  its  whole  tex- 
ture is  taken  to  build  a  gall-ball,  which  is  both 
house  and  food  for  the  grub.  A  new  idea  entered 
with  the  parasite  egg,  and  carried  out  the  cynips' 
type. 

Some  seeds,  such  as  the  cherry,  blackberry, 
and  raspberry,  are  surrounded  by  a  pulpy,  luscious 
fruit,  which  the  birds  eat,  and  the  stones  of  the 
fruit  pass  through  the  bodies  of  the  birds  and 
are  scattered  far  and  wide. 

Other  seeds  are  supplied  with  fluffy  tufts 
of  cotton,  and  by  that  device  are  blown  afield 
and  spread  for  new  germinations.  Others  are 
held  by  bushy  tops  which  break  before  the  seed 
pods  do  and  go  tumbling  over  the  ground  to  new 
111 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

places  for  the  seed  growth.  Others  are  protected 
by  hard  casements  which  may  be  carried  by 
floods  to  great  distances.  Others  are  provided 
with  arrangements  by  which  they  fasten  them- 
selves to  passing  bodies,  and  are  thus  disseminated. 

Protective  resemblance  is  psychic.  The  regu- 
lar stinging  nettle  is  self -protective.  The  white 
nettle  is  regularly  shunned  because  it  is  so  near 
like  the  other.  On  the  Riviera  grows  a  species 
of  euphorbia  so  acrid  that  its  juices  protect  it 
from  many  enemies.  The  yellow  bugle  which 
grows  in  the  same  region  escapes  by  protective 
resemblance. 

"A  tree  is  a  thought,  a  unity,  a  rational,  re- 
sponsible whole;  the  matter  of  it  is  but  the  medium 
of  expression.  Call  it  matter,  tree,  or  a  physical 
production,  and  have  we  yet  touched  its  ultimate 
reality?  Are  we  quite  sure  that  what  we  call  a 
physical  world  is,  after  all,  a  physical  world?  The 
preponderating  view  of  science  now  is,  that  it  is 
not.  The  very  term  material  world,  we  are  told, 
is  a  misnomer,  and  that  the  world  is  a  spiritual 
world  merely  employing  matter  for  its  manifesta- 
tions." (Drummond.) 


112 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

The  Cell. 

THE  working  basis  of  the  life  sciences  is  the 
cell.  All  life  might  have  been  derived  from  a 
single  cell.  Nature's  prodigalities  with  its  myriad 
forms  of  utility  and  beauty  have  come  up  from 
plasm  germs  which  are  absolutely  indistinguish- 
able. Cell  life,  chemically  and  physiologically 
considered,  is  identical  in  organisms  of  widely 
differing  structure.  With  such  a  homogeneous 
base,  and  with  similar  outer  conditions,  diverse 
structure  must  have  some  other  accounting  than 
the  straight  action  of  the  organic  chemistries. 
We  have  to  deal  surely  with  some  other  unit  of 
force,  some  difference  of  life  potential  which  does 
not  show  itself  phenomenally  at  first,  but  in  the 
outcome  of  things.  Would  the  basal  stuff  begin 
a  cleavage  unless  the  differential  was  there  to 
induce  it?  Are  we  not  compelled  to  have  an 
explanation  of  what  comes  to  pass  in  the  produc- 
tion of  definite  organisms.  Mere  cell  division  is 
8  113 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

mechanical.  That  is,  it  is  a  straight  measure  of 
the  increase  of  life;  but  in  order  to  account  for 
what  is,  it  must  get  itself  mixed  up  with  a  lot  of 
headlong  potencies  which  the  laboratory  does  not 
disclose.  In  other  words,  if,  in  the  first  stages,  it 
is  practically  impossible  to  distinguish  the  animal 
cell  from  the  man  cell,  and  even  if  the  fact  shows 
that  life  is  continuous,  does  not  the  unfolding  life 
of  each  cell  in  its  own  way,  and  in  its  own  direc- 
tion, go  to  show  conclusively  that  the  organic 
chemistries  are  not  yet  masters  of  all  the  forces 
actually  at  work  in  embryology? 

The  most  painstaking  empirical  tests  are  not 
able  to  set  forth  that  which  is  a  fact  about  these 
embryos.  There  is  an  animal  cell.  There  is  a 
man  cell.  In  each  case  this  will  be  so  before  we 
have  the  means  to  know  it,  except  by  knowing 
their  procreative  sources.  The  fertilized  ovary, 
by  all  physical  tests,  is  identical  in  material  and 
structure  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  cells  about 
it.  But  the  fact  is,  from  the  moment  of  impreg- 
nation a  masterful  somewhat,  which  eludes  all 
analysis,  instantly  demands  a  word  picture  of 
that  which  is  to  come  about  in  the  swift  evalua- 
tions of  life.  And  when  a  start  has  been  made 
toward  a  definite  organization,  there  are  no  devia- 
114 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

tions,  no  confusions,  no  scarred  edges  through 
border  contacts,  no  careless  throw  of  the  shuttles 
in  the  loom  of  life. 

Individuality  of  the  Cell. 

The  tendency  among  students  in  embryology 
now  is  to  take  large  account  of  the  individuality 
of  the  cell.  The  cell  has  a  degree  of  independency 
of  life  over  the  molecular  aggregates  to  which  it 
may  belong.  There  may  be  living  cells  in  a  body 
after  life  has  become  extinct.  Leucocytes  may  be 
taken  from  their  living  home,  and  kept  for  days, 
in  a  citrate  chloride  solution.  The  heart  of  a 
tortoise  has  been  taken  from  the  body  and  kept 
alive  for  weeks  by  supplying  it  with  artificial 
blood,  made  of  salts  and  grape  sugar.  The  cell, 
therefore,  has  a  distinct  life  focal  of  more  or  less 
tenacity.  To  a  degree,  it  is  independent  of  the 
overlap  of  the  complex  life  unit  to  which  it  may 
belong. 

Goeble  makes  a  statement  of  Negeli's  idea  of 
cell  investment  as  follows:  "There  are  also  in 
the  nature  of  plants  themselves  intimations  of 
laws  of  variation  which  lead  to  a  perfecting  of 
organic  forms,  and  to  their  progressive  differentia- 
tion independently  of  their  struggle  for  existence, 
115 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

and  of  natural  selection."  He  sees  an  inner  and 
an  originating  capacity  for  adjustment  and  vari- 
ation. The  individuality  of  the  cell  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  each  has  its  own  predetermined  man- 
ner of  development.  All  young  cells  of  any  young 
plants  are,  at  first,  nearly  similar  in  form  and 
size;  but,  later  on,  each  cell  is  seen  to  follow  cer- 
tain laws  of  growth  which  are,  to  a  certain  extent, 
independent  of  all  external  forces.  From  these 
laws,  together  with  various  mechanical  causes, 
arises  the  great  variation  of  forms  in  the  cells  of 
ordinary  plants.  The  peculiar  form  common  to 
certain  unicellular  plants  illustrates  even  better 
than  those  of  higher  ones  the  inherent  tendency  of 
cells  to  grow  in  a  certain  manner."  All  physio- 
logical units  maintain  the  integrity  of  their  ar- 
rangement because  the  primordial  units  from  which 
they  are  derived  ordain  an  arrangement  of  that 
kind. 

For  the  mysterious  somewhat  which  dominates 
the  protoplasm  of  a  single  nucleus,  Sachs  invents 
the  term  "Energid."  The  energid  is  a  free  agent 
within  limits — a  mighty  fighter,  and  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  struggle  of  the  individual  cells 
to  maintain  themselves  against  extraneous  control 
which  would  blot  out  an  inherent  individualism. 
116 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

"The  most  perfect  picture  of  the  plant,  or  of  the 
protoplast,  must  necessarily  fail  to  reveal  the 
hidden  and  invisible  causes  which  make  it  assume 
its  specific  form."  (Pfeffer.)  The  invisible  cause  is 
known  to  be  a  fact.  A  definite  energy  resides 
within  the  cell.  It  has  intricate  movements  and 
endowments  of  its  own.  It  is  the  unit  of  the 
associated  organic  achievements.  As  in  a  free 
government,  the  electors  are  what  the  social  units 
are;  so  the  type  of  any  organism  is  fixed  by  what 
the  cells  contain. 

It  is  certain  that  procreative  characteristics 
and  powers  center  in  the  cell.  The  number  of 
cell  chromosomes  in  an  animal  are  the  same  in 
all  animals  of  the  same  species.  Where  the  method 
of  sex  reproduction  prevails  the  chromosomes  of 
the  sperm  cell  and  the  ovum  are  always  equal, 
which  is  probably  the  biological  explanation  of 
sexual  affinity. 

Furthermore,  all  special  life  characteristics  ap- 
pear to  originate  in  the  cells.  So  also  by  special 
cell  capacity  each  plant  takes  its  food  from  the 
common  supply  and  runs  it  through  its  own  unique 
laboratory.  The  endlessly  diverse  features  of  life 
prevail  in  a  realm  of  free  choices  and  autocratic 
commands. 

117 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Definition. 

The  cell  itself  is  a  microscopic  enclosed  mem- 
branous sac.  It  has  an  outer  membrane  or  skin, 
which  is  firm  and  elastic.  The  plasm,  or  cell 
substance,  contains  albuminous  matter  which  is 
called  protoplasm.  In  this  cell  substance  is  a 
nucleus  or  kernel.  The  kernel  also  contains  a 
smaller  kernel,  called  the  nucleolus.  With  its 
fibers  and  liquids  and  granules  and  nuclein,  the 
cell  is  a  very  complex  little  body.  It  is  probably 
one-two-hundredths  of  an  inch  in  diameter.  Mi- 
nuter divisions  are  still  found  inside  the  nucleolus, 
and  they  are  as  finely  and  definitely  wrought  as  if 
a  plastic  and  infinite  skill  had  been  there  before 
the  microscope  ever  set  forth  the  fashion  of  it. 
One  glimpse  at  a  living  cell  puts  despair  into  all 
human  efforts  to  manufacture  life.  The  features 
of  the  cell  are  all  too  fine  for  any  imitation  of 
human  skill.  The  marvel  of  it  is  not  inferior  to 
that  of  human  personality  itself;  and  yet  nature, 
in  many  small  organisms,  builds  a  million  of  them 
in  a  minute. 

It  is  known  that  plants  and  animals  grow  by 

the  process  of  cell  division.     Under  the  growth 

impulse   the   cell   begins   to   contract   across    the 

center,  and  it  separates  itself  into  two  about  equal 

118 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

parts,  each  part  becoming  a  new  unit  of  life;  and 
the  same  act  is  repeated  indefinitely.  The  increase 
is  geometric.  There  are  evidences  that  cell  divi- 
sion is  not  altogether  mechanical.  For  instance, 
the  cell  nucleus  is  not  always  in  the  center  of  the 
plasm.  And  as  the  first  discoverable  movement 
towards  division  takes  place  there,  when  the 
nucleus  is  on  one  side,  the  line  of  least  resistance, 
mechanically,  would  be  to  make  an  incision  on 
that  side;  but  the  nucleus  always  lays  the  division 
plate  down  through  the  center  of  the  plasm  to 
the  outer  wall  of  the  cell.  This  kind  of  proto- 
plasmic reasoning  repeats  itself  with  the  regularity 
of  law  many  million  times  in  the  life  of  any  plant 
or  animal. 

The  living  cell  is  the  base,  the  protoplasm. 
The  quality  of  life  in  the  cell  has  very  much  to  do 
with  the  particular  characteristics  of  the  proto- 
plasm, which  is  not  a  simple  compound,  with  an 
invariable  molecular  composition,  produced  on 
order  in  the  laboratory.  There  are  as  many  kinds 
of  protoplasm  as  there  are  kinds  of  organisms; 
and  the  determining  element  in  an  organism  is 
cell  individuality.  If,  at  the  moment  when  a  cell 
gets  itself  shunted  in  the  direction  of  its  particular 
life  form,  we  could  detect  its  definite  bent,  we 
119 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

would  almost  have  the  secrets  of  life  between  our 
thumb  and  finger.  We  may  yet  only  look  on  with 
wonder,  and  say  with  Drummond,  "Observe  with 
what  unerring  aim  the  one  type  unfolds,  never 
pausing,  never  uncertain,  in  its  direction,  refusing 
arrest  at  intermediate  forms,  passing  on  to  its 
flawless  maturity  without  waste  of  effort  or  fa- 
tigue." "There  must  be  mind  somewhere  in  the 
responsive  power  of  protoplasm  in  making  cells, 
in  building  tissues,  and  in  the  construction  of 
organs."  (Henslow.)  "Mind,  or  at  least  some- 
thing so  like  mind  that  their  phenomena  can  not 
be  distinguished,  seems  to  belong  to  all  organized 
matter,  even  down  to  its  lowest  forms."  (McCon- 
nell.) 

Cell  individuality  is  notable  in  micro-organ- 
isms. These  bodies  are  alike  in  their  littleness 
and  in  their  simple  structure,  which  consists  in  a 
single  cell;  but  otherwise  they  are  as  much  unlike 
as  other  folks.  They  belong  to  a  well  set-up 
kingdom.  But  they  are  of  all  kinds — commoners, 
aristocrats,  marauders,  sleepyheads.  Not  many 
questions  of  precedence  and  primordial  right  have 
been  settled  peaceably  among  them.  The  micro- 
scope shows  to  the  human  eye  a  psychic  surging 
tragedy.  Relentless  wars  are  waged  with  more 
120 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

millions  in  each  army  than  ever  peopled  the  earth. 
Vanquished  species  lie  buried  everywhere.  In 
each  cubic  foot  of  air  the  warring  hosts  swarm 
like  the  locusts  of  Assyria. 

If  a  drop  of  water  containing  infusoria  is  placed 
under  the  microscope,  minute  bodies  may  be  seen 
swarming  in  every  direction.  Some  of  these  swim 
around  obstructions,  others  push  them  to  one  side. 
They  show  a  capacity  for  voluntary  movement, 
therefore.  One  species  may  be  seen  rushing  about 
in  search  for  food.  Another  waits  for  food  to  come 
its  way.  Another  casts  corpuscle  darts  at  an 
enemy,  which  seem  to  have  an  electric  or  para- 
lytic effect.  Binet  makes  very  much  of  this 
psychic  feature  of  cell  life.  The  higher  animal 
forms  are  supposed  by  him  to  be  colonies  of  dif- 
ferently endowed  cells.  The  distinct  functions  of 
the  animal  body  are  given  the  same  explanation. 
Bone  and  muscle  and  hair  and  nails  and  adipose 
tissue  and  brain  substance  are  so  many  assem- 
blages of  protozoans  equipped  especially  for  the 
work  they  have  to  do.  He  undertakes  to  account 
for  the  affinities  of  the  higher  organisms,  such  .as 
the  tiger  for  blood  and  the  duck  for  water,  by  this 
sort  of  cell  investment.  Such  a  theory  practically 
fastens  on  nature  a  blind  determinism,  and  at 
121 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  same  time  it  posits  intelligence  in  the  last 
analytic  expression  of  life.  Its  claims  may  be 
held  in  reserve.  Its  determinism,  however,  has  to 
do  with  a  phase  of  cosmic  action  so  far  below  the 
choices  and  freedoms  of  the  human  intellect  that 
as  a  plausible  hypothetic  it  is  perfectly  consistent 
with  a  free  personal  will. 

Equilibrium  of  the  Sexes. 

A  favorite  theory  is  that  which  brings  about 
the  equilibrium  of  the  sexes  in  the  higher  organ- 
isms. In  the  two  elements  of  fecundation  the 
tendency  of  the  male  cell  is  to  produce  the  female, 
and  the  tendency  of  the  female  cell  is  to  produce 
the  male.  On  the  basis  of  this  dual  tendency,  the 
equalization  of  the  sexes  becomes  a  question  be- 
tween the  individual  and  the  community.  Males 
in  excess  would  produce  an  overplus  of  male 
energy,  which,  in  fecundation,  would  mean  an 
increase  in  the  stream  of  female  tendencies,  and 
that  intensified  current  would  continue  until  the 
balance  is  restored.  The  same  principle  holds  on 
the  other  side.  The  sex  of  the  offspring  is  de- 
termined by  the  question  of  sex  superiority — the 
sex  being  that  of  the  inferior  parent,  according  to 
the  principle  of  the  cross  heredity  of  sex.  If  the 
122 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

male  is  superior,  the  progeny  will  be  female;  and  if 
the  female  is  superior,  the  progeny  will  be  male. 
The  dairyman  who  handles  the  Jersey  cow  is  often 
perplexed  by  the  appearance  of  so  many  male 
calves.  He  might  find  the  cause  of  it  in  the  mating 
of  an  overtaxed  male,  usually,  with  a  highly-fed 
and  pampered  and  sparingly  bred  female. 

The  eggs  of  the  queen  bee,  before  fecundation, 
produce  males  (drones)  exclusively.  Those  laid 
after  fecundation  produce  the  workers,  which  are 
females.  The  total  self-procreative  response  of 
the  queen  bee  is  maleways.  The  total  response 
in  fecundation,  through  the  drones,  in  which  there 
is  a  vast  overplus  of  male  energy,  produces  a  fe- 
male progeny  altogether — the  potency  of  the 
queen  being  entirely  obliterated.  Thus  the  hive 
intent  is  carried  out  in  a  remarkable  way.  The 
arrangement  has  in  it  a  prevision  of  the  whole  life 
of  the  species. 

An  intimation  of  the  action  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple (which,  as  with  the  bee,  does  not  accomplish 
the  equalization  of  sex  in  the  colony  life,  but  does 
accomplish  the  hive  intent  in  another  direction) 
may  be  noted  in  the  procreative  habits  of  the 
honey  ant  of  South  America.  The  female  there  is 
ordinarily  infertile;  but  when  the  pressure  of 
123 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

colony  conditions  are  extreme  it  seems  that  she  is 
capable  of  producing  progeny;  and  not  being  fer- 
tilized, her  total  response  is  maleways. 

Self-Fertilization. 

The  female  cell  of  a  grain  of  corn  lies  unseen 
in  the  husk,  and  sends  out  a  pendant  in  search  of 
the  male  germ,  which,  from  the  tassle,  has  been 
cast  into  the  air.  The  conjunction  of  the  two 
cells  completes  the  fertilization  of  the  grain,  which 
embodies  itself  in  the  kernel.  Now,  besides  the 
pollen  grain,  which  impregnates  the  female  germ, 
there  is  another  substance  in  the  grain  of  corn 
which,  in  union  with  a  responsive  substance  in 
the  embryo  sac,  begins  the  production  of  starch, 
which  is  to  serve  as  food  for  the  germ  from  the 
time  it  quickens  until  it  can  appropriate  the  more 
intractable  elements  of  the  soil  and  air.  This  is 
the  mother  milk  of  the  new  life  as  it  starts  on  its 
upward  way.  This  twofold  process  is  so  clearly 
defined  in  a  grain  of  corn  that  the  starch  and 
heart  are  clearly  distinguishable  by  the  naked  eye. 
A  critical  examination  will  show  the  molecular 
groupings  of  the  food  material  to  be  classified  into 
localities  in  the  grain  so  as  to  be  serviceable  in 
the  order  of  their  need  during  the  first  few  days 
124 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

of  growth.  A  millionaire  in  his  palace,  with  his 
larder  full,  and  wrapped  in  his  blankets,  has  not 
made  more  careful  provision  for  a  rainy  day  than 
this  unit  of  life  whose  palace  is  a  grain  of  corn. 

Heredity. 

The  distinct  marvel  of  life  is  heredity.  When 
two  cells  meet  in  copulation,  the  prophetic  organ- 
ism, which  is  then  begun,  partakes  of  the  genetic 
characteristics  of  each  cell.  A  transfusion  of  the 
most  intricate  and  far-reaching  of  ancestral  traits 
takes  place.  Two  streams  of  genetic  tendencies 
have  confluence  in  the  unities  of  a  new  life.  The 
particular  psychic  cell  investment  here,  which 
starts  and  carries  forward  the  most  complicated 
and  abstruse  interacting  influences,  and  which 
begins  to  shape  a  new  bodily  and  mental  life  pre- 
natally,  and  which  so  mingles  the  dissimilar  traits 
of  two  beings  as  to  produce  in  the  progeny  an 
infinite  series  of  differences,  and  at  the  same  time 
conserves  and  keeps  clear  on  each  side  ancestral 
traits — ceases  not  to  be  the  wonder  of  the  world. 

When  a  child  is  born  we  meet  a  body  of  im- 
pulsions, instincts,  desires,  and  primal  tendencies 
which  do  not  take  that  youngster  in  haphazard 
directions,  but  in  the  way  of  the  balanced  totals 
125 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

of  their  power.  They  show  themselves  to  be  self- 
directive  of  a  certain  order  for  that  life  and  a 
certain  kind  of  surrounding.  They  form  for  the 
child  its  constitutional  base  of  experience,  and 
they  are  largely  determinative  of  what  the  life  is 
to  be.  The  procreative  impulsions  are  of  first 
significance  in  fixing  the  characteristics  which  dis- 
tinguish one  human  being  from  another.  We  may 
be  blind  to  the  order  of  such  a  law  or  not,  obedient 
or  not — it  usually  has  its  way  with  us  to  bend  or 
break  things.  This  radicalism  of  the  genetic 
power  is  yet  consistent  with  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will,  which  has,  as  the  life  goes  on,  oppor- 
tunity to  execute  its  formal  decisions;  but  it  is 
evidently  not  the  intent  of  nature  that  its  power 
should  be  equal  to  the  shift  of  these  deep-laid 
original  determinations.  Without  question,  the 
exercise  of  the  will  weakens  or  strengthens  both 
the  good  and  the  bad  inheritances;  and  it  may 
be  said,  at  times,  to  overcome  and  conquer  them; 
but  the  human  will,  in  resistance  to  the  inbred 
tendencies,  always  fights  a  battle  against  odds. 
The  logic  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  is  responsi- 
bility, which  does  not  limit  itself  to  the  action 
involved.  Its  scope  is  often  enlarged  to  identifica- 
tion with  the  race.  The  power  of  the  will,  too 
126 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

frequently,  is  called  into  action  at  the  wrong 
time — after  heredity  seals  the  fates  with  its  con- 
sequences. The  more  positive  assurances  of  a 
free  will  are  propaedeutic  rather  than  remedial. 
Those  who  were  most  largely  responsible  for  the 
Jukes  family  lived  their  lives  before  the  Jukes 
family  had  its  notorious  history.  The  will  makes 
more  headway  when  it  undertakes  to  guide  the 
currents  than  when  it  tries  to  dam  up  the  floods. 
Varietal  change  is  also  prominently  congeni- 
tal. If  we  could  make  an  analysis  of  the  in- 
born tendencies  of  any  human  being  we  would 
find  in  them  traces  of  the  vanished  units  of  the 
races  to  which  that  being  belongs.  We  would 
find  the  better  traits  of  a  long  line,  and  the  lower 
traits  also,  legibly  marked.  The  human  brain 
itself,  in  its  inmost  detail  of  structure  and  tempera- 
mental nature,  is  a  repository  of  the  ancestry  of 
that  brain  for  more  generations  than  the  books 
show.  Above  this,  the  posits  of  experience  are 
seldom,  if  ever,  predominant.  Truth  values 
through  the  sense  avenues  remain  secondary  to  the 
unitary  power  of  these  undercurrents.  We  shall 
never  be  able  to  make  ourselves  over  into  some- 
thing new.  We  only  fall  in  line  with  the  course 
of  things  when  we  make  the  human  destination  a 
127 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

question  of  preference.  Even  family  and  racial 
features  usually  have  their  way.  They  fix  for 
each  newcomer  into  the  world  its  finally  dis- 
tinguishing traits.  The  common  people  have  the 
whole  truth  when  they  say,  "There  is  something 
in  the  stock." 

It  is  not  contended  anywhere  that  the  labo- 
ratory is  able  to  disclose  the  presence  of  these 
basal  investments.  Its  tools  are  not  made  with 
that  intent.  Our  mental  and  moral  elements  are 
spirit  scintillations.  Matter  is  the  yielding  sub- 
stance— the  fact  of  the  crass  outward  vision,  the 
servant  of  the  inward  inclination.  It  gets  be- 
marked  with  the  real.  Goodness  and  honor  set 
their  seals  in  the  face.  Evil  has  no  power  to  cover 
its  tracks.  The  villain  must  of  necessity  take 
the  manners  of  a  thief.  The  eye  is  spirit.  The 
lips  are  spirit.  The  whole  bodily  movement  is  an 
expression  of  the  inward  equation.  Heredity  has 
in  it  more  meaning  for  the  race  than  education, 
as  we  understand  that  to  mean  the  drill  and  in- 
forming of  the  mental  faculties.  When  the  he- 
reditary impulsions  are  understood,  as  they  give 
promise  of  being,  and  are  implicity  obeyed,  the 
work  of  character  building  will  approach  the  mas- 
terfulness of  a  science. 

128 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

Several  noteworthy  theories  of  heredity  have 
been  advanced  which  are  of  value  in  this  discus- 
sion only  because  they  attempt  to  pursue  the 
physical  basis  of  it  to  its  limits.  The  reproductive 
act,  of  course,  is  the  center  of  interest.  The  union 
of  a  single  sperm  cell  with  a  single  ovum  cell 
builds  the  microscopic  bridge  across  which  the 
wonders  of  life  pass.  The  potencies  of  two  beings 
— a  male  and  a  female,  each  with  limitless  an- 
cestral records — coalesce  in  the  impregnated  germ 
and  start  a  new  life  unit. 

Mr.  Darwin's  explanation  is  substantially  as 
follows :  All  the  cells  of  the  multi-cellular  organism 
appear  to  throw  off  very  minute  "gemules,"  which 
disperse  themselves  through  the  system  and  mul- 
tiply by  self-division.  These  gemules  have  an 
intense  mutual  affinity,  and  are  called  together  by 
the  reproductive  glands  of  the  organism,  and  con- 
stitute the  material  of  the  ovum  and  the  sperm 
cell.  These  cells  are  not  to  be  distinguished  by 
what  they  are  in  their  organic  structure,  but  by 
the  invisible  forces  which  they  contain.  These 
forces  are  not  to  be  discovered  in  the  reproductive 
cells  in  themselves,  but  in  the  new  organism,  as 
it  develops  and  shows  the  marks  of  a  myriad  an- 
cestry. Darwin  admits  that  there  is  no  experi- 
9  129 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

mental  evidence  of  the  existence  of  these  so-called 
gemules. 

Weisman  says  the  multi-cellular  organisms  are 
composed  of  two  kinds  of  cells,  "Germ  cells"  and 
"Somatic  cells."  The  germ  cells  are  continuous 
from  body  to  body.  They  are  stable  and  endless 
and  constitute  the  physical  basis  of  all  life.  Their 
function  appears  to  be  to  carry  over  hereditary 
investments.  They  transmit  them  only  through 
the  generative  act.  They  are  not  subject  to  any 
of  the  influences  of  environment.  The  somatic 
cells,  on  the  other  hand,  make  up  the  bulk  of  the 
organism.  They  are  subject  to  all  outer  condi- 
tions, but  transmit  nothing.  All  acquired  qualities 
expire  with  them.  The  germ  cell  is  a  causative 
force,  and  makes  life  on  the  earth  a  continuous 
stream. 

Nageli  insists  that  at  the  base  of  all  organisms 
are  certain  ultra-microscopic  particles  which  he 
calls  "Micellae."  These  are  the  ultimate  potencies 
of  life,  and  the  determinants  of  all  variation.  Life 
does  not  originate  from  a  single  cell,  but  shows 
itself  where  the  conditions  prevail.  The  micellae 
become  oriented  into  a  form  of  life,  which  he  calls 
"Ideoplasm."  Ideoplasm  ramifies  all  organs  by 
becoming  a  part  of  the  content  of  the  cells  of  all 
130 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

organisms.  It  is  the  ultimate  particle  of  matter 
invested  with  mind.  In  all  the  shifts  of  evolution 
it  crosses  each  line  a  deathless  substance. 

These  theories  are  efforts  toward  a  physical 
explanation.  No  experimental  proofs  appear  of 
gemules,  or  germ  cells,  or  micellae.  Ideoplasm  is 
a  better  term  for  the  inner  content,  because  it  is 
a  symbol  of  intelligence.  Nageli  uses  it  probably 
for  the  reason  he  uses  the  term  "enlagen."  He 
means  the  constitutional  feature  of  germ-plasm. 
He  endows  it  with  originating  capacities.  He 
makes  it  a  determinant  of  direction.  He  means 
the  line  along  which  an  organism  will  develop. 
He  means  a  plan,  preconceived  and  executed.  He 
means  an  organ,  plus  a  formative  power.  His 
pages  are  rich  in  phrases  like  the  following:  "The 
molecular  forces  arrange  themselves;"  "Dynamic 
influence;"  "The  action  of  the  internal  forces;" 
"Oriented  micellae;"  "Capability  of  the  primordial 
plasm;"  "Integrity  of  the  organism;"  "Ideo- 
plastic  determinants;"  "Automatic  perfecting  prin- 
ciple." The  real  has  broken  in  on  him,  and  he  is 
here  struggling  to  give  it  detachment  of  thought. 
His  ultimate  material  unit  is  not  able  to  walk 
alone.  When  it  is  idealized,  it  expresses  what  he 
feels  to  be  present  in  any  life  form.  It  is  not  pos- 
131 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

sible  to  see  the  true  nature  of  life  without  the 
hypothesis  of  an  organizing  capacity.  Biologists 
are  obliged  to  do  all  their  work  under  that  assump- 
tion. 

The  research  which  traces  the  action  of  living 
matter  back  to  the  cell  and  its  nucleus  settles  no 
question  in  philosophy.  The  smallness  of  the 
material  unit  only  increases  the  wonder  and  the 
mystery.  When  a  thread  of  matter  too  small  for 
the  microscope  is  yet  large  enough  to  carry  over 
the  mighty  forces  which  we  know  do  get  over; 
when  a  sightless  unit  is  yet  comprehensive  of  a 
far-extended  race  history;  when  a  particle  of 
matter  so  small  that  it  can  not  be  known,  except 
in  the  way  it  combines  with  other  particles  of 
matter,  yet  holds  in  its  grip  mystically  inwoven 
powers,  which  have  in  them  the  decisive  elements 
of  the  human  character,  we  are  about  to  the  point 
of  "being  crowded  to  our  knees"  in  its  presence. 

"Life  is  not  force;  it  is  combining  power.  It 
is  the  product  and  presence  of  mind."  (Bascom.) 
"Mind  may  be  predicted  of  all  animal  life  in  one 
sense  or  another,  and  we  may  also  form  the  view 
of  Agassiz  and  others,  that  a  spiritual  element  is 
the  originating  cause  in  every  embryo  cell,  de- 
termining its  development."  (Barker.) 
132 


THE  FOUNTAINS  OF  LIFE. 

Cosmic  Spontaneities. 

But  further;  there  are  some  facts  observable 
in  procreation  for  which  these  theories  do  not 
account,  and  for  which  no  interpretation  of  hered- 
ity can  possibly  account.  It  involves  a  spontane- 
ous and  an  originating  action  of  the  cosmic  super- 
force.  For  instance,  among  a  given  number  of 
children  of  the  same  parents,  which  implies  sim- 
ilar genetic  influences,  and  substantially  the  same 
outside  conditions,  no  two  of  them  will  be  alike; 
and,  as  is  often  the  case,  one  of  them  will  show  a 
personal  equation  of  such  personal  force  as  to 
make  him  unique  among  his  kin.  If  we  are  to  be 
limited  to  the  straight  action  of  the  primary  in- 
heritances, there  is  no  accounting  for  a  Shake- 
speare. He  rises  above  his  family  lines,  above  his 
race.  He  is  not  a  summary  of  what  evolution  has 
done.  With  him  some  personal  factors  have  been 
differentiated  on  the  spot.  Shakespeare  is  a  pro- 
creative  originality.  Some  monad  there  arose 
instantly  to  mightiness.  Spontaneity  of  mind  in 
the  realm  of  life  makes  the  genius  possible.  Genius 
is  prophetic — it  is  a  flash  of  the  potential  race 
mind. 


133 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  NATURAL 

RESEARCH. 
A  Rich  Discovery. 

THERE  can  be  no  valid  objection  to  the  hy- 
pothesis that  the  human  mind  is  an  evolution 
from  the  psychic  states  of  matter.  And  there 
need  be  no  feeling  against  the  claim  that  the 
mental  capacity  and  power  has  been  acquired  by 
gradation.  The  validity  of  either  of  these  opinions 
includes  the  other.  They  both  imply  a  psychic 
potency  in  the  realms  of  life  adequate  to  that 
which  has  come  about.  Specialists  may  or  may 
not  have  been  equal  to  the  task  of  revealing  all 
the  stages  by  which  the  full-orbed  human  fac- 
ulty has  ascended.  From  a  certain  angle  of  vision 
the  road  traveled  over  has  yet  the  appearance  of 
being  a  highway  with  several  bridges  gone.  Nev- 
ertheless the  general  course  of  it  has  been  pretty 
well  staked  out,  and  it  may  be  put  down  in  the 
annals  of  research  as  a  find  so  rich  that  its  con- 
tribution to  knowledge  is  even  now  very  much 
underestimated. 

134 


CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  NATURAL  RESEARCH 

The  history  of  nature's  processes  was  so  well 
worked  out  by  Darwin,  and  Wallace,  and  others 
in  the  beginning  days  of  that  kind  of  study; 
and  it  so  had  the  fascination  of  a  romance  in 
science,  and  so  quickly  set  the  world  of  scholar- 
ship into  a  new  way  of  thinking,  that  it  became 
overstimulated  in  the  start,  and  had  put  on  it 
the  onus  of  an  explanation  of  all  things  natural — 
as  if  there  was  nothing  more  to  say. 

No  attempt  here  will  be  made  to  enter  into 
a  discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  further 
than  to  state  in  brief  some  reconstructions  of  the 
earlier  ideas  and  to  set  forth  the  religious  sig- 
nificance of  the  new  knowledge. 

The  Ulterior  Reality. 

We  do  not  get  much  understanding  of  that 
which  evolves  by  an  analysis  of  that  which  is 
evolved.  For  purposes  of  explanation,  and  for 
tracing  processes,  we  may  take  any  number  of 
forms  and  make  out  a  case  of  likenesses,  per- 
sistences, variations,  descents.  That  work  may 
be  very  interesting  and  very  profitable,  but  it 
does  not  go  back  to  the  genesis  of  things.  The 
ulterior  reality  must  be  a  cause  of  the  evolving 
aspects.  We  may  say  that  mind  made  its  ap- 
135 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

pearance  somewhere  along  the  unfolding  way;  but 
the  way,  in  itself,  is  a  mind  movement.  Darwin 
saw  a  primordial  force.  Nageli  invented  the  word 
ideoplasm  to  explain  his  conception  of  a  deter- 
mining super-force.  Eimer  saw  a  definitely  di- 
rected evolution.  Any  idea  of  life  which  implies 
a  subordination  of  inner  to  outer  processes — 
which  implies  the  hard  and  fast  action  of  observed 
law — is  faulty  in  the  extreme.  Tendencies  toward 
continuous  adjustment,  outwardly,  are  secondary 
to  the  integrity  of  form  in  organisms.  The  issue 
with  philosophy  lies  in  the  term  integrity.  And 
a  sound  philosophy,  with  any  department  of 
science,  will  be  respected  sooner  or  later.  The 
synthetic  values  of  research  are  its  only  practical 
values.  Philosophy  demands  the  survival  of  in- 
tent. With  organisms  the  intent  is  in  the  form, 
and  the  form  is  an  idea.  The  stream  of  living 
matter,  chemically  understood,  is  a  whirlpool — a 
seething  chaldron,  through  which  form  survives. 
And  the  survival  is  not  froth  or  foam — it  is  not 
slag.  Things  did  not  have  a  cakewalk  and  come 
out  as  they  are. 

Types  and  species  are  not  the  long-drawn  re- 
sults of  accidental  variations.     They  are  evolved, 
but  inwardly.     Henle  conceived  of  life  as  a  non- 
136 


CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  NATURAL  RESEARCH 

material  agent,  associated  and  identified  with  all 
organisms  and  adequately  endowed  to  produce 
and  reproduce  the  type  forms  without  waste  or 
decay  of  its  powers.  The  inward  urge  in  things 
manifests  itself  in  a  series  of  progressive  appear- 
ances. Any  healthful  thinking  about  the  behavior 
of  living  matter  appears  to  demand  the  hypothetic 
of  an  adequate  psychic  power  whose  movement  is 
from  within  outward. 

Millions  of  species  of  plants  and  animals  are 
now  known.  Millions  more  await  the  discoverer. 
Other  millions  await  the  creative  process.  The 
resident  and  intrinsic  energies  of  matter  consti- 
tute an  endowment  which  is  great  beyond  esti- 
mate. And,  thought  about  in  that  way,  investi- 
gation starts  with  a  theory  of  intelligence.  A 
psychic  presence  also  implies  a  degree  of  spon- 
taneity. We  have  to  do  with  wills  and  choices. 
A  few  of  the  early  explorers,  who  lived  on  the 
frontiers,  did  not  seem  to  have  full  appreciation 
of  that  fact,  and  they  overloaded  evolution  with 
the  doctrine  of  descent,  feature  by  feature.  What 
a  strain  and  a  vagueness  has  been  attached  to  a 
theory  by  the  inconceivable  stretches  of  time 
which  the  law  of  variation  must  be  given  to  per- 
fect these  millions  of  species.  Out  of  identical 

137 
f 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

physiological  conditions  will  come  forth  reptiles 
and  birds  and  animals.  It  is  known  that  these 
identities  suddenly  reach  a  shunting  point;  and 
then  the  transformations  are  so  swift  and  head- 
long and  radical  that  an  implicate  of  prevision  is 
a  necessity.  How  could  the  animal  eye,  for  in- 
stance, be  developed  by  other  than  a  co-ordination 
of  the  life  forces?  In  the  building  of  such  an 
organ  accidental  variation  would  be  fatal  to  sight. 
In  the  building  of  a  tree,  is  there  not  a  somewhat 
on  the  spot  which  commands  the  situation  and 
resents  interference?  Are  not  the  organic  chemis- 
tries there — light,  heat,  moisture,  air,  nutritive 
material — all  under  orders  to  build  a  certain  type 
of  tree?  Has  any  dextrous  brain  ever  produced  so 
fine  a  mechanism?  The  power  which  encompasses 
the  wholeness  of  things  there — is  it  blind? 

The  Psychic  Initiative. 

All  of  the  great  natural  life  groups  show  traces 
of  a  spontaneous  psychic  initiative.  For  instance, 
the  articulates  among  invertebrates  consist  usu- 
ally of  a  single  nervous  system  with  central  gan- 
glia, and  from  these  direct  nerve  radiations  to  all 
the  organs  of  action.  The  articulates  are  splen- 
didly armed  with  such  instruments  as  wings  and 
138 


CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  NATURAL  RESEARCH 

legs  and  mandibles  and  paddles  and  diggers  and 
stings  and  antennae.  Articulate  life  is  deeply 
grooved,  but  it  has  its  never-failing  reactions.  It 
has  swift  capacity  to  clear  the  deck  for  action  as 
soon  as  the  first  shock  of  the  enemy  is  felt.  The 
most  insignificant  bug  by  the  roadside,  or  the 
beetles  under  a  log,  will  show  astonishing  resent- 
ment when  aroused  or  challenged.  The  articu- 
lates, so  to  speak,  are  armored  cruisers.  They 
have  a  horny  head  or  a  thick  integument,  or  the 
skeleton  of  the  body  on  the  outside,  so  that  lever- 
age and  efficiency  are  given  its  appendages.  The 
common  ant  can  manage  and  move  an  object  a 
hundred  times  the  weight  of  its  own  body.  Cer- 
tain soft-looking  worms  find  their  way  into  the 
hardest  woods.  The  muscular  grip  which  the 
land  tortoise  has  with  its  shell  is  greater  than  the 
strength  of  giants.  If  man,  unaided,  could  exert 
as  much  strength,  according  to  his  size,  he  could 
carry  off  greater  things  than  the  gates  of  Gaza. 
But  while  articulate  action  is  peculiarly  adapted 
to  its  uses,  and  shows  a  distinct  vigor,  the  whole 
of  it  is  so  near  to  the  nature  of  a  reflex  that  it 
deserves  the  name  automatic.  Its  sense  of  the 
outer  fellowships  is  exceedingly  dull. 

The  vertebrates,  on  the  other  hand,  are  in- 

139 
f 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

fluenced  by  a  class  of  tendencies  which  could  not 
have  found  their  origin  at  the  highest  conceivable 
point  of  automatic  vigor.  In  the  outer  appre- 
hensiveness,  in  adroitness  and  tact,  in  the  use  of 
the  values  of  experience,  in  the  use  of  tools,  in  the 
awakening  to  consciousness  vertebrate  hie  is  so 
positively  divergent  in  its  directions  as  to  make 
reasonable  the  supposition  that  a  psychic  intent 
presided  at  its  beginnings. 

If  it  is  established  that  nature  shows  even  a 
single  case  of  this  kind  of  sudden  redirection  of 
the  modes  of  life,  it  can  be  made  to  appear  that 
the  "lost  link"  is  a  fetich.  It  establishes,  in 
strong  probability,  the  theory  that  there  has  never 
been  any  break  in  the  ascent  of  real  being.  What 
despairing  search  the  folks  have  had:  what  in- 
genuity and  contrivance  in  placing  tooth  with 
tooth  and  claw  with  claw  in  the  hope  that  some 
extinct  species  may  yet  relieve  the  strain  on  a 
theory. 

Physical  continuity,  as  an  invariable  law,  is  a 
fiction.  After  hah*  a  century  of  profound  re- 
search, the  facts  are  not  at  hand  to  sustain  it. 
Each  after  its  own  kind  is  a  law  which  does  not 
account  for  radical  divergences  which  are  known 
to  exist.  When  naturalists  can  not  keep  up  with 
140 


CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  NATURAL  RESEARCH 

nature's  fruition  in  the  creation  of  life  forms,  how 
untenable  must  appear  the  theory  of  accidental 
variation  as  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  growth 
and  development  of  organisms!  In  any  square 
rod  of  an  old  field  life  forms  may  arise  simply  out 
of  the  conditions.  Spontaneous  generation  proved 
beyond  question  is  the  most  desirable  next  achieve- 
ment of  science,  in  the  interest  of  religion.  It 
will  demonstrate  the  spiritual  identities  of  matter 
in  all  its  forms.  It  will  relieve  the  world's  thought 
permanently  of  the  implication  that  religion  is 
simply  a  sentiment. 

The  world  has  given  Mr.  Darwin  credit  for 
being  a  master  in  finding  out  how  living  forms 
came  to  be  as  they  are.  It  is  not  to  his  discredit 
that  he  did  not  see  all  the  features  of  his  problem, 
or  all  its  consequences.  He  certainly  did  not  have 
any  intent  towards  that  result  of  his  patient  labor 
which  has  become  a  splendid  and  enduring  monu- 
ment of  his  life  work. 

The  old  tradition  was  that  man  had  dropped 
down  into  things.  Darwin  has  shown  that  man 
himself  is  the  product  of  natural  law;  that  he  has 
come  up  out  of  things  and  is  the  greatest  of  all 
growers;  that  he  belongs  to  the  universe  and  is 
neither  a  superior  nor  an  alien. 

141 
f 


CHAPTER  VII. 
NAKED  NATURE. 

NAKED  nature — that  is,  its  open,  direct,  and  first 
contact  with  the  mind  and  heart — has  always 
been  man's  greatest  teacher.  The  school  of  first 
impressions  is  life's  school  of  absolute  democracy. 
The  savage,  the  child,  the  youth,  the  artist,  the 
scholar  make  up  a  class  of  all  sorts.  On  the  same 
terms  they  get  the  same  lessons  in  the  same  way. 
Scholarship  has  no  advantage  over  childhood, 
except  in  its  larger  capacity  of  appreciation,  be- 
cause with  the  primary  instincts  external  objects 
are  to  both  etherealized.  The  smithies  of  wonder 
forge  out  much  truth.  All  the  poets  and  lovers 
and  dreamers  prefer  to  walk  the  open-eyed  way 
of  direct  impressions — they  wish  to  go  to  nature 
unafraid,  as  to  an  unbetraying  mother,  and  they 
choose  to  woo  and  win  rather  than  work  with 
hammer  and  tongs. 

"See,  now  I  hold  my  heart  against  this  tree; 
The  life  that  thrills  its  trembling  leaves  thrills  me; 
There  is  not  a  pleasure  pulsing  through  its  veins 
That  does  not  sting  me  with  ecstatic  pains; 
142 


NAKED  NATURE. 

No  twig  or  tracery,  however  fine, 

Can  bear  a  tale  of  joy  exceeding  mine." 

— Angela  Morgan. 

"  'T  is  not  in  the  high  stars  alone, 
Nor  in  the  redbreast's  mellow  tone. 
Nor  in  the  cup  of  budding  flowers. 
Nor  in  the  bow  that  smiles  in  showers, 
But  in  the  mud  and  scum  of  things, 
There  alway,  alway,  something  sings." 

-Emerson. 

"To  sit  on  rocks  to  muse  o'er  floods  and  feel, 
To  slowly  trace  the  forest's  shady  scene, 
Where  things  that  own  not  man's  dominion  dwell, 
And  mortal  feet  hath  ne'er  or  rarely  been, 
To  climb  the  trackless  mountain  all  unseen, 
With  the  wild  flock  that  never  needs  a  fold, 
Alone  o'er  steeps  and  foaming  falls  to  lean — 
This  is  not  solitude."  — Byron. 

"I  have  felt 

A  presence  which  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts,  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns; 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  the  mind  of  man, 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects,  of  all  thoughts, 
And  rolls  through  all  things."          — Wordsworth. 

"To  breathe  the  air,  how  delicious! 
To  speak,  to  walk,  to  seize  something  by  the  hand; 
To  be  this  incredible  god,  I  am: 
O  amazement  of  things,  even  the  least  particle: 
O  spirituality  of  things."  — Whitman. 

143 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

"  'T  is  but  the  unseen  that  grows  not  old  nor  dies, 
Suffers  not  change,  nor  waning,  nor  decay, 
This  that  we  see,  this  casual  glimpse  within 
The  seething  pit  of  space — these  million  stars 
And  worlds  in  making,  these  are  nought  but  matter. 

All  are  slaves  to 

That  power  immense,  mysterious,  intense, 
Unseen  as  our  own  souls,  but  which  must  be 
Like  them  in  the  theme  of  thought,  with  will  and  might 
To  stamp  on  mindless  matter  the  soul's  will." 

— Gilder. 

"Sometimes,  in  walking  through  a  bit  of  wood- 
land, one  chances  on  a  quiet  and  darkly  serene 
pond;  a  pool  amid  the  trees  that  looks  small  and 
shallow,  that  hardly  draws  the  eye  from  the  flicker- 
ing sun  and  shade  playing  their  immortal  game 
of  hide-and-seek  over  the  tree  trunks  and  through 
the  shrubbery.  Yet  should  one  pause  and  look 
down  into  the  brown  water,  one  presently  finds 
it  a  difficult  matter  to  resume  the  tramp.  The 
pool  holds  you;  its  gold  reflections,  its  peace,  its 
mysterious  silence  mean  more  from  moment  to 
moment.  The  woods  you  have  been  walking 
through  are  more  beautiful  seen  through  the  re- 
vealing medium.  There  is  the  exquisite  tracery 
of  a  fine  bough  against  the  blue  sky,  and  a  gleam 
of  scarlet  on  yonder  wayfaring  trees,  which  you 
would  have  passed  unnoticed;  even  a  distant 
144 


NAKED  NATURE. 

cloud,  rose-hued,  telling  of  approaching  evening. 
The  pond  brings  nothing  to  you  which  you  might 
not  have  seen  for  yourself,  but  as  you  see  it  now, 
through  the  clear  beauty  of  its  own  observation, 
with  an  addition  of  tranquillity,  in  itself  a  beauty, 
it  is  no  longer  woods  and  leaves  and  clouds  you 
see,  but  their  spiritual  effects."  (Benson.) 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  his  Samoan  home, 
was  habitually  strung  up  to  the  out-of-door  pitch. 
He  always  felt  the  incommunicable  thrill  of  things. 
When  he  set  out  to  clear  the  spaces  about  his 
house,  the  struggle  of  the  grasses  and  the  vines  he 
uprooted  went  to  his  heart  like  supplications. 
And  since  his  death  the  natives  forbid  the  use  of 
firearms  on  the  hillside  where  his  body  is  buried. 
They  wish  his  spirit  to  enjoy  the  birds  unmolested. 

William  Dean  Howells,  in  his  last  visit  to 
Oxford,  found  himself  at  a  loss  to  keep  in  memory 
each  renowned  roof  and  minaret  and  spire.  The 
May  morning,  the  May  air,  the  radiance  of  sun- 
shine and  flower  held  him  fast.  The  "blurr  of 
leafy  luxuriance,"  the  "foliage  of  green  trees"  so 
embowered  the  colleges  that  Gothic  nave  and 
stone-wrought  transept  became  second  to  the  in- 
sistence of  flowery  color  everywhere  in  bloom.  A 
10  145 

f 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

man  captured  in  the  shades  of  Oxford  by  those 
highwaymen,  the  trees.  A  scholar  with  large 
appreciation  of  academic  things,  and  duly  reverent 
before  the  hoary  history  of  an  institution  of  learn- 
ing, and  on  his  way  to  don  a  cap  and  gown,  gets 
suddenly  thrown  off  his  feet  and  swept  aside  by 
the  voiceless  magic  of  nature's  doings. 

Thoreau  tells  us  why  he  went  to  the  woods  to 
live:  "I  went  to  the  woods  to  live  because  I 
wished  to  live  deliberately,  to  front  only  the  es- 
sential facts  of  life,  to  see  if  I  could  learn  what  it 
had  to  teach,  and  not,  when  I  come  to  die,  dis- 
cover that  I  had  not  lived.  I  did  not  wish  to  live 
what  was  not  life,  living  is  so  dear;  nor  did  I  wish 
to  practice  resignation  unless  it  was  quite  neces- 
sary. I  wanted  to  live  deep  and  suck  out  all  the 
marrow  of  life;  to  live  so  sturdily  and  Spartan-like 
as  to  put  to  rout  all  that  was  not  life;  to  cut  a 
broad  swath  and  to  shave  close;  to  drive  life  into 
a  corner  and  reduce  it  to  its  lowest  terms;  and  if 
it  proved  to  be  mean,  why  then  to  get  the  whole 
and  genuine  meanness  of  it  and  publish  its  mean- 
ness to  the  world;  or,  if  it  were  sublime,  to  know 
by  experience  and  to  give  a  true  statement  of  it 
in  my  next  excursion." 

146 


NAKED  NATURE. 

In  a  like  mystic  mood,  Brierly  says:  "Is 
there  anything  so  tender  as  that  caress  with 
which  nature,  when  we  are  sick  or  overwrought, 
wooes  us  back  to  strength.  Robust  health  is  very 
well  in  its  way,  but  there  is  a  subtle  happiness 
which  it  does  not  know.  It  is  tasted  by  the  man 
of  nervous  organization  when,  strained  to  ex- 
haustion point,  he  flies  for  recovery  to  his  healer; 
when  far  away  on  the  sea,  or  meeting  the  keen 
breezes  of  the  moorland,  he  knows  that  every 
breath  he  draws,  every  glint  of  the  open  heavens, 
every  bit  of  scenery  his  eye  rests  upon,  every 
moment  of  the  delicious  resting  time  is  forming 
one  great  system  of  beneficence  that  is  working 
to  make  him  well." 

Dr.  Wm.  V.  Kelley  says:  "At  Table  Rock, 
Niagara,  we  can  not  name  the  elements  which  sub- 
due us.  Our  joints  are  unloosed,  our  reins  tremble, 
and  we  are  dazed  in  all  our  senses  by  the  thunder 
of  an  unsyllabled  voice,  the  yawning  of  an  un- 
measured abyss,  the  sweep  and  swirl  of  waters 
concealed  by  foam,  the  vast  gulf  obscured  with 
explosive  bursts  of  mist,  the  fury  of  vague  and 
awful  forces.  We  are  crowded  to  our  knees  with 
blanched  faces  by  the  indefinable." 
147 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

When  Moses  killed  his  man  in  the  name  of 
justice,  the  supreme  question  of  the  enigma  of 
existence  began  to  envelop  his  spirit.  Under  the 
burden  of  it,  he  soon  fled  to  the  desert  to  have  it 
out  with  the  long,  lonesome  days,  and  the  stars, 
and  the  silences  of  the  great  Infinite.  He  took 
time  for  reflection,  time  for  his  soul  to  ripen,  time 
to  find  himself,  and  to  mature  holy  ambitions. 
The  place  in  all  the  world  for  that  was  the  Midian 
solitude. 

Alone  in  his  tent,  with  the  lonesome  deserts 
about  him,  Mohammed's  spirit  brooded  into  ma- 
turity the  faith  which  has  been  accepted  by  a 
thousand  millions  of  people.  He  was  under  the 
spell  of  the  illimitable  sandy  wastes  when  he  was 
first  convinced  of  the  unity  of  the  world  and  the 
oneness  of  the  Creator.  A  shadow  passed  over 
his  dwelling  place,  and  he  saw  in  it  the  masterful 
Presence.  The  thunder  above  the  Arabian  hills 
was  the  voice  of  the  great,  strong  God.  Mo- 
hammed had  a  marvelous  sense  of  the  divine. 
Will  any  one,  since  what  has  come  about,  deny 
him  that? 

He  was  under  the  limitations  of  knowledge. 
Errors  of  ignorance,  fanaticisms,  cruelties,  cor- 
148 


NAKED  NATURE. 

ruptions  have  since  crept  in,  to  make  of  a  sublime 
monotheism  what  Islam  is  to-day. 

John  Burroughs  says:  "I  can  not  tell  what 
the  apparition  of  the  simple  earth  and  sky  mean 
to  me.  I  think,  at  rare  intervals,  that  they  have 
an  immense  spiritual  meaning,  altogether  un- 
speakable, and  that  they  are  great  helps  after  all." 

Robert  E.  Peary  says:  "No  man  can  live  for 
years  surrounded  by  the  great  white  mystery  of 
the  Arctic  without  feeling  that  within  and  behind 
it  is  an  Intelligence,  watchful  and  responsive." 

Doctor  Milne,  a  British  medical  officer,  after 
long  living  in  the  marshes  of  the  Upper  Nile,  says: 
"My  respect  and  reverence  for  this  mighty  river 
grows  more  deep  and  profound.  Living  for  many 
weeks  in  the  vastness  of  these  swamps,  one's  very 
soul  gets  bitten  with  the  appalling  sense  of  isola- 
tion and  the  vastness  of  the  monotony." 

Hseckel  says  of  Rapello,  his  place  of  study  on 
the  Mediterranean:  "I  was  stimulated  by  the 
constant  sight  of  the  blue  Mediterranean,  the 
countless  inhabitants  of  which  had,  for  fifty  years, 
afforded  such  ample  material  for  my  biological 
149 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

studies;  and  my  solitary  walks  in  the  wild  gorges 
of  the  Ligurian  Appenines,  and  the  moving  spec- 
tacle of  its  forest-crowned  altars,  inspired  me  with 
a  feeling  of  the  unity  of  nature."  The  great  analyst 
comes  out  of  his  study  and  turns  mystic.  He  is 
uplifted  and  stimulated  by  the  sea.  The  enrap- 
turing charm  of  mountain  crevasses  moves  his 
spirit  to  solitude  and  reverence.  The  beauty,  the 
sublimity,  the  unity  of  nature  inspire  him  as  he 
walks  the  restful  way  where  the  hills  have  builded 
their  altars. 

So  Rodin  believed  himself  to  be  devoutly  wor- 
shipful when  caught  up  by  the  moods  of  nature. 
The  sense  of  mystery  took  hold  on  him,  and  he 
approached  the  shores  of  the  unknown  in  the 
deepest  humility.  Bradford  Torrey  says,  "Stand- 
ing still  in  the  woods  is  a  positive  refreshment." 

But  what  does  it  all  mean?  Why  make  a 
string  of  mystic  pearls  like  that?  Because  the 
material  is  at  hand  for  the  making.  The  world 
is  full  of  it,  and  only  because  the  universe  itself 
makes  of  it  the  most  commanding  of  all  influences 
on  the  life. 

In  open-mindedness,  with  the  heart's  sympa- 
thies uncovered,  the  secret  is  in  the  fellowship; 
150 


NAKED  NATURE. 

and  the  fellowship  is  born  of  likenesses  and  iden- 
tities. Dissonance  of  essential  being  would  be 
estrangement.  The  elements  of  all  human  ideas 
are  in  objects  everywhere.  Real  knowledge  is 
consonant  with  the  real  idea  in  nature.  The 
human  and  his  surroundings  are  one.  If  an  inner 
and  an  outer  unlikeness  existed  there  could  be  no 
understanding,  no  research,  no  intimacy.  A  simple 
walk  in  the  open  fields  would  confuse  and  blur 
the  mental  powers.  The  lover  of  the  out-of-doors 
could  not  wander  in  the  meadows  and  thickets  and 
gulches  with  such  keen  delight  unless  he  found 
there  a  sanity  and  an  order  which  made  itself  to 
him  a  source  of  mental  burnishing,  worthy  also 
of  his  mettle,  a  challenge  to  his  highest  capacities. 
Creation  demands  some  theory  of  intelligence. 
"  We  have  come  pretty  widely  to  discredit  the  idea 
that  the  presence  of  law  in  nature  does  away  with 
the  need  of  mind."  (Downey.)  "No  dead  mech- 
anism moves  the  stars,  or  lifts  the  tides,  or  calls 
the  flowers  from  their  sleep."  (Mabie.)  "The 
human  mind  in  every  age  has  spontaneously  and 
instinctively  recognized  the  existence  of  an  in- 
visible presence  and  power  pervading  nature." 
(Cocker.)  Doctor  Cocker,  in  the  above  sentence, 
evidently  means  the  divine  presence  and  power. 
151 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

In  these  pages  thus  far  we  do  not  mean  that.  We 
make  a  distinction  with  a  difference.  The  fear  of 
the  worship  of  nature  is  born  of  superficial  think- 
ing. A  child  may  walk,  entranced,  in  a  garden 
of  flowers,  without  having  to  give  any  theological 
account  of  itself.  A  baby  in  long  clothes  may  roll 
over  in  the  grass  and  pluck  a  bluebell  for  its 
mouth  without  becoming  a  pantheist.  Nature  is 
not  God.  Cosmic  mind  is  not  God.  The  human 
mind  is  not  God.  We  say  God  is  immanent  in 
all  things;  how,  we  do  not  know.  What  God  is 
we  do  not  know.  The  human  understanding  is 
impotent  before  the  idea.  Those  who  dare  it  are 
very  ignorant.  Does  a  little  child,  in  its  mother's 
arms,  know  what  the  mother  is?  It  knows  enough 
to  snuggle.  We  know  what  God  is  to  us — and 
that  is  the  truth.  We  were  born  with  the  inward 
assent  to  a  First  Cause,  which  is  the  ground  of 
unity. 

We  belong  to  an  intelligent  order,  and  the 
cause  of  it  must  be  intelligent.  We  approach  God 
by  way  of  all  that  the  universe  is.  We  have 
become  acquainted  with  a  moral  order,  and  we 
may  know  that  God  is  good.  We  have  become 
aware  of  a  beneficence  like  that  of  a  parent  to  a 
child — and  we  call  God  our  Father.  We  have 
152 


NAKED  NATURE. 

seen  that  an  orderly  scheme  is  in  harmony  with 
the  kind  of  intelligence  which  makes  room  for 
special  messages  in  the  divine  administration  of 
this  world. 

If  the  base  of  things  is  spirit,  then  our  most 
familiar  experience  is  its  tendency  to  incarnate 
itself.  We  can  then  see  how  that  the  incarnation 
of  a  special  message  might  be  a  cosmic  necessity. 
We  know  the  passion  of  the  Christ  on  the  cross 
to  be  a  master  note  of  creation,  and  positively 
redemptive  everywhere.  All  this,  God  is  to  us, 
and  more.  The  Great  Book  itself  refuses  detach- 
ment from  nature's  doings. 

"Let  the  floods  clap  their  hands:  let  the  hills 
be  joyful  together.  Let  the  sea  roar,  and  the 
fullness  thereof.  Let  the  sun  and  moon  praise 
Him,  and  all  the  stars  of  light.  Fire  and  hail: 
snow  and  vapors:  stormy  wind  fulfilling  His  word: 
mountains  and  all  hills:  fruitful  trees,  and  all 
cedars:  beasts,  and  all  cattle:  creeping  things,  and 
flying  fowl:  both  young  men  and  maidens:  old 
men  and  children — let  them  praise  the  name  of 
the  Lord." 


153 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

Has  Nature  an  Ethic? 

ANY  theory  of  reality  must  meet  finally  the 
question  of  "moral  values.  Experience  consists  in 
more  than  a  direct  cognition  of  physical  states 
and  their  supra-material  manifestations.  General 
knowledge  never  reaches  its  final  acquisitions  until 
it  has  included  the  consideration  of  what  ought 
and  what  ought  not  to  be.  The  ultimate  rational 
appeal  is  ethical.  We  can  establish  no  moral 
relations  with  nature  unless  it  has  an  ethic  of  its 
own.  Has  nature,  then,  any  good  intent,  or  is 
it  mere  weather?  Is  it  possible  to  translate  the 
common  natural  forces  with  which  we  have  to  do 
into  terms  of  well-meaning  and  beneficence  on 
the  part  of  the  power  which  runs  things?  Weeds 
and  flowers  grow  on  the  same  hillock.  Song  birds 
and  vipers  live  in  the  same  thicket.  Microbes 
and  deadly  diseases  lurk  in  the  richest  foods.  Cold 
freezes.  Fire  burns.  Death  approaches  with  any 
careless  moment.  Those  of  wholesome  life  are 
often  struck  with  loathsome  and  fatal  maladies. 
154 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

What  a  crazy-patch  nature  appears  to  be,  with 
its  freaks  and  extravagances,  its  strifes  and  con- 
fusions. The  hideous,  the  frolicsome,  the  gaudy, 
the  comic,  the  profitless,  the  condemnatory — all 
these  exist.  Many  forms  of  life  answer  neither 
the  demands  of  utility  or  beauty,  and  others  are 
like  wild  colts,  broken  from  an  enclosure,  to  en- 
gage in  mischief  and  depredation.  Abhorrent  mal- 
formations appear — six-footed  quadrupeds,  animals 
with  two  heads.  Siamese  twins,  isolated  females 
producing  offspring.  Is  the  system  rational  then? 
Well,  the  mad-houses  are  full  of  human  beings;  so 
are  the  penitentiaries.  Man  is  either  guilty,  or  he 
is  the  subject  of  all  the  features  here  named.  Is 
he  rational  then?  We  are  inclined  to  say  he  is 
rational  nevertheless.  Rationality  has  its  ob- 
verse side.  And  that  principle  applies  to  the 
limits  of  all  things. 
Is  Life  Illogical? 

Can  this  world's  life  of  antagonism  and  con- 
flict justify  itself  from  an  intellectual  standpoint? 
Is  it  able  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  scientific 
understanding  ? 

We   get   pretty    well   knocked    about   in   this 
world  by  the  time  we  are  through  with  it.     We 
writhe  and  twist  under  the  jolt  of  things.    About 
155 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  safest  way  is  to  rise  up  and  fight,  because  if 
we  dodge  and  shirk  we  are  sure  to  get  thrown 
under.  But  whence  comes  the  courage  for  the 
conflict?  Is  there  anything  adequate  in  it?  If 
the  issue  of  the  struggle  leaves  the  situation  no 
better  for  anybody,  it  is  not  worth  while.  There 
ought  to  be  a  balance  somewhere  to  the  credit  of 
advantage  or  justice.  Reason  will  justify  any 
sort  of  a  bloody  dash,  if  the  issues  are  big  enough. 
Is  there  anything  to  be  gained?  Is  there  a  right 
and  wrong  anywhere?  And  if  so,  what  do  they 
signify?  If,  in  the  more  familiar  natural  events, 
we  are  not  able  to  detect  the  action  of  the  kinder- 
garten moralities,  if  gravitation  does  not  reverse 
itself  to  save  the  life  of  a  falling  child;  then,  in 
the  aggregates  of  nature's  ongoings,  is  there  any 
kindliness  at  all?  Is  there  anything  sweet  or  clean 
or  good  about  them?  Have  they  an  upward  move- 
ment? Have  they  any  preference  for  pleasure 
over  pain?  Are  there  any  irreparable  wrongs? 
Is  nature  illogical?  Is  it  a  moil  of  contradictions, 
with  no  mother  sea  of  goodness  anywhere — no 
goal  but  a  black  perplexity?  Many  acute  and 
sincere  minds  have  raised  these  questions;  and 
they  make  up  a  tremendous  issue. 

Before  certain  standards  of  the  human  judg- 
156 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

ment  the  cosmic  forces  are  put  under  a  strain. 
Some  of  the  features  of  the  natural  world  have 
their  downpull.  And  these  constitute  no  small 
part  of  what  nature  is.  The  dance  of  a  few  ad- 
verse midgets  might  be  set  aside,  but  the  fact  of 
pain,  in  the  evolution  of  life,  is  of  such  vast  ex- 
tent— it  so  touches  every  phase  of  organic  his- 
tory— that  a  reason  must  be  found  for  its  existence. 
It  can  not  be  ignored.  And  it  can  not  be 
answered  with  any  devout  didactic. 

Carl  Snider,  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  Fred- 
rick Palmer,  and  Huxley,  and  Spencer,  and  a 
host  of  others  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  nature  is  not  kind,  or  loving,  or  wise,  but 
cruel,  and  uncanny,  and  plundering  in  her  hor- 
rors. Possibly  this  judgment  is  at  fault.  Possibly 
the  race  has  not  yet  found  the  secret  of  nature's 
way.  Man  himself  may  have  missed  the  normal 
direction  of  his  faculties,  and  he  may  be  powerless 
to  radically  change  his  nature.  But  the  moral 
problem  is  not  less  intense  by  the  truth  or  false- 
ness of  any  of  these  surmises. 

The  way  of  the  approved  human  life  means  a 
struggle.  Virtue  is  the  result  of  positive  aggres- 
sions and  of  strong  resistances.  Vice  is  the  way  of 
the  loose  rein,  and  is  marvelously  attractive  to  an 

157 

f 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

indolent  spirit.  Hurt  and  hunger,  adverse  expe- 
riences, surprises,  disappointments,  defeats,  humili- 
ations, bitter  regrets  so  set  themselves  in  the 
pathway  of  all  men  that,  unless  they  can  be  shown 
to  have  some  value  in  the  final  adjudications  at 
farthest,  we  have  not  reached  any  moral  explana- 
tion of  existence.  Strife  and  conflict  and  suffering 
in  the  human  life  are  very  general  features  of  the 
cosmic  plan — if  it  has  any  plan.  The  lower  or- 
ganisms are  all  in  constant  and  relentless  strife. 
Millions  of  microbes  hold  high  carnival  of  war  in 
each  cubic  foot  of  air  about  our  heads.  They  fill 
the  meshes  of  our  clothing,  our  carpets,  our  tap- 
estries. The  pores  of  our  skin  are  crevices  where 
they  fight  and  die.  Disease  parasites  pierce  all 
the  tissues  of  the  body  and  swim  in  all  the  blood 
channels.  And  they  survive  there,  in  a  way 
which  shows  that  they  must  do  so,  where  the  forces 
of  life  and  death  play  hide-and-seek  with  as 
ghastly  a  diplomacy  as  has  ever  been  known  in 
the  councils  of  the  armies  of  men.  No  need  of 
further  instance. 
Resignation. 

The  race  at  large,  to  date,  has  undertaken  to 
meet  the  facts  of  pain  and  sorrow  and  adversity 

in  two  ways. 

158 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

The  first  is  the  way  of  resignation,  which  mani- 
fests itself  largely  in  the  Orient.  In  the  farthest 
East  it  has  developed  into  the  doctrine  of  Nir- 
vana, which  signifies,  in  brief,  the  conquest  of 
desire.  The  outward  struggle  is  thus  escaped.  It 
is  the  opiate  of  indifference.  The  result  is  indi- 
vidual and  social  stagnation.  More  than  half  the 
human  race  is  now  testing  out  this  way.  Count- 
less, weary  millions  walk  over  life's  thistles  and 
stones  with  bleeding  feet,  doing  their  best  to  deny 
the  experience  of  pain.  The  drama  of  Job  is  a 
word  picture  of  the  age-long  issue.  The  inner 
spirit  of  Buddhism  is  resignation  to  the  remediless 
ills  of  life. 

Edwin  Arnold  states  the  case  of  Buddha  in 

this  way: 

"The  fair  show 

Veiled  one  vast,  savage,  grim  conspiracy 
Of  mutual  murder,  from  the  worm  to  the  man; 
Who  himself  kills  his  fellows." 

Then  Buddha 

"Gives  himself  up 
To  meditate  the  deep  disease  of  life, 
What  its  far  source,  whence  its  remedy, 
So  vast  a  pity  filled  him,  such  wide  love 
For  living  things,  such  a  passion  to  heal  pain." 

Tradition  has  it  that  Buddha  forsook  royalty 

and  wealth  and  a  beautiful  wife  that  he  might 
159 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

know  for  himself  life's  sorrow.  He  became  a 
mendicant  beggar  and  lived  in  penance  and  ob- 
scurity; and  he  returned  to  his  native  city  finally — 
greater  than  a  prince,  because  he  had  learned  wis- 
dom in  sorrow  and  suffering. 

Suffering,  with  its  attendant  sorrow,  together, 
are  the  sources  of  wisdom  in  the  sense  that,  until 
we  know  these,  we  do  not  really  know  life;  but 
Buddhism  has  overstimulated  that  side  of  human 
experience  by  giving  it  the  first  place  in  a  propa- 
ganda. It  has  for  its  outcome  the  world's  greatest 
brotherhood  of  poverty  and  sorrow.  It  throws 
down  the  lance  and  refuses  to  enter  the  lists,  but 
it  does  not  escape  the  conflict.  It  has  silenced  the 
outward  cry  and  resentment  against  pain  and 
abuse,  and  against  social  wrongs  which  need  to 
be  righted;  and  it  has  produced  the  deadliest  kind 
of  inward  consequences.  The  appeal  to  expe- 
rience which  prides  itself  in  endurance  and  sub- 
mission has  in  it  only  the  logic  of  a  listless  indif- 
ference. 

Conquest  Through  Struggle. 

The  other  way  of  meeting  the  adverse  facts  of 
nature  is  the  way  of  conquest  through  struggle, 
160 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

The  larger  values  of  life  are  supposed  to  be  wrested 
from  the  opposition.  The  real  life  is  militant  and 
overcoming.  We  achieve  a  character  when  we 
face  the  full  force  of  all  human  mutabilities.  Some- 
body has  to  stay  out  and  square  themselves  with 
moral  and  physical  issues  as  they  come.  Only 
the  coward  runs  away.  When  the  ascetic  tries  to 
escape  by  retiring  from  the  world,  he  does  not 
propose  a  fair  deal  with  the  rest  of  the  folks.  A 
strenuous  career  is  the  easiest  way  through.  The 
mental  powers  are  rounded  out  by  being  blended 
with  the  elements  of  a  many-sided  experience. 
The  will  and  the  courage  to  take  one's  place  in  the 
world,  to  challenge  its  untoward  circumstances,  to 
accept  a  tussle  with  the  actual  conditions  of  a 
chosen  sphere,  and  to  remain  true  to  its  higher 
admonitions — this  is  character.  The  attrition 
which  calls  for  caution  and  wisdom  and  courage 
and  adaptableness  and  versatility  and  patience 
drive  the  elements  of  the  personality  together  and 
create  a  self -centered  unit  strong  enough  to  stand 
the  strain  of  things.  It  is  doubtful  if  we  can  call 
that  personality  which  has  not  encountered  and 
overcome  opposition.  The  surrender  of  principle, 
at  any  time,  is  a  damage  to  the  spirit.  We  are  sane 
ll  161 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

as  long  as  we  struggle  hopefully  against  adverse 
conditions.  We  are  sane  also  when  we  surrender 
in  a  fight  against  the  stars. 

Philosophy  of  Pain. 

Pain  is  a  fact  of  life  which  can  not  be  con- 
jured away.  In  itself  it  is  a  natural  and  inevitable 
reaction  against  that  which  produces  it.  A  child's 
finger  touches  the  fire  and  muscular  reaction  takes 
place  immediately.  In  that  pain  something  of 
swift  adroitness  must  go  to  the  credit  of  the 
nerves  of  sensation;  but  the  greater  value  is  a 
mental  consequence.  If  the  wisdom  of  experience 
takes  the  place  of  another  burn,  the  hazard  of  a 
like  pain  is  escaped,  because  the  mind  has  in- 
vented a  smoother  way.  Mental  suffering  has  the 
same  meaning.  Its  warnings  are  in  the  direction 
of  a  reconstructed  life.  Its  demand  is  for  a 
strengthened  will,  with  its  measureless  values. 
The  stings  of  conscience  are  the  appeals  of  the 
spirit  to  rush  from  an  inferno.  And  that  impulsion 
is  by  so  much  redemptive,  because  it  is  an  escape. 
Aside  from  the  punitive  consequences  of  crimes, 
such  as  are  often  the  stern  voices  of  justice,  they 
may  have  the  value  of  guideboards  along  life's 
way.  They  furnish  to  the  oncomers  foreknowl- 
162 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

edge  of  what  retribution  is.  They  give  faithful 
warnings  without  flattery.  In  a  negative  way, 
they  contribute  towards  the  perfecting  of  the 
moral  faculties — they  limit  the  hazards  of  er- 
roneous living. 

Pain,  in  itself,  is  not  desirable.  Proofs  of  an 
overplus  of  it  in  the  natural  system  would,  we 
think,  present  the  most  difficult  of  all  problems  in 
casuistry.  While  it  probably  does  not  predom- 
inate over  pleasure,  it  is  nevertheless  the  universal 
concomitant  of  life;  and  the  knife-edge  of  its  suf- 
fering must  be  compensated  by  some  reflex  of 
value  which  belongs  to  it. 

Physiologically,  pain  is  the  inability  of  the 
suffering  organ  to  bring  against  it  an  adequate 
reaction.  A  state  of  life  anywhere  without  it 
would  be  a  state  in  which  all  subject  organs  were 
qualified  at  all  times  to  react  successfully  against 
its  intrusions.  But  is  it  not  clear  that  such  a 
state  would  produce  inactivity  and  indifference? 
If  hunger  could  be  warded  off  by  the  action  of  the 
organs  which  produce  it,  there  would  be  no  further 
effort  to  get  food.  If  the  heat  of  the  body  could 
always  resist  cold  and  lack  of  shelter,  the  incentive 
to  build  houses  and  fires  would  be  gone.  If  the 
inward  reactions  always  amounted  to  complete 
163 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

resistance,  the  spur  to  mental  energy  would  be 
gone.  A  state  of  unalloyed  physical  happiness  is 
not  conceivably  possible.  Even  the  cultured  and 
growing  capacity  to  appreciate  life  implies  always 
an  increased  and  keener  susceptibility  to  mental 
distress.  As  the  ideals  of  men  are  perfected,  the 
sense  of  life's  contrasts  and  contradictions  be- 
comes clearer. 

Both  pleasures  and  pains  intensified  are  the 
concomitants  of  culture.  High-thinking,  when- 
ever that  comes  about,  must  face  the  certainty  of 
some  counterpart  of  refined  suffering.  Life  is 
more  difficult  in  its  higher  phases.  All  sharpened 
enjoyments  have  their  keen  reversions.  Does  the 
fact  furnish  a  motive  against  refinement  or  the 
finesse  of  civilization?  The  ox  is  happy  when  he 
is  full  of  stover,  but  who  wants  his  place?  Mill 
says,  "Better  a  human  being  dissatisfied  than  a 
pig  satisfied."  It  is  a  sign  of  nobility  to  be  able  to 
measure  the  force  of  life's  inescapable  shafts.  It 
is  a  sign  of  strength  to  be  able  to  stand  erect  and 
receive  them  one  by  one  and  at  the  same  time  to 
keep  one's  self  in  hand  with  reserve  of  energy, 
and  ready  for  concentration  on  the  work  of  any 
hour. 

We  do  not  understand  how  there  can  be  such 
164 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

a  state  as  sheer  misery  unrelated  to  an  orderly 
scheme.  Pain  is  not  always  an  effect,  the  cause  of 
which  ought  to  be  removed.  The  surgeon's  knife 
ought  not  to  be  taken  away  for  that  reason.  It 
deals  in  futures.  Its  physical  good  consequence  is 
a  beneficence — and  a  beneficence  is  ethical.  Pain 
must  have  some  of  its  reasons,  therefore,  in  its 
reflex  values.  In  its  direct  action  it  is  not  at  all 
desirable.  The  impulse  to  escape  it  is  as  deep- 
seated  as  the  capacity  itself.  It  does  not  assuage 
its  own  asperity.  It  drives  on,  rather,  to  an  in- 
tolerable torment. 

There  is  not  a  particle  of  sweet  in  its  bitterness. 
Its  direct  influence  is  to  stir  the  powers  radi- 
cally to  get  away  from  it.  A  part  of  the  secret  of 
happiness  is  at  that  particular  point.  Convul- 
sions and  contagions  are  challenges.  The  life 
powers  which  survive  them  must  be  sinewy. 
Physically  we  are  never  strong  to  resist  these 
enemies  unless  we  are  fortified  beforehand  by 
frugality  and  healthful  industry  and  habitual 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  healthful  living.  The 
whole  discipline  admonishes  to  farsightedness.  The 
good  of  it  is  not  in  itself,  but  in  the  dynamic  of  its 
banishment.  It  is  the  whip  towards  an  ascendant 
vitality. 

185 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Stress  of  Circumstance. 

In  a  world  where  hunger  haunts  all  the  days 
of  every  human  being  in  it,  the  wish  to  escape 
the  harassing  and  constant  danger  of  striking  the 
bottom  of  the  flour-barrel  is  not  altogether  un- 
natural. But  the  wish,  nevertheless,  is  a  great 
weakness.  Complete  physical  luxury  is  of  doubt- 
ful benefit  in  any  case,  and  it  breeds  degeneracy 
in  all  cases. 

For  a  few  generations,  now,  man  has  been 
improving,  as  he  calls  it,  his  domestic  animals. 
By  feeding  and  care  and  cross-breeding  he  has 
grilled  out  the  wild  traits,  because  he  has  no 
need  for  them;  and  he  has  bred  in,  and  fattened 
in,  that  which  he  did  need.  If  our  present  breeds 
of  horses  and  cattle  and  hogs  were  cast  out  into 
the  wild,  and  left  to  survive  and  perpetuate  them- 
selves, they  would  quickly  perish.  A  life  of  toil 
may  be  exchanged  for  a  life  of  ease.  The  hardened 
muscle  may  be  bartered  for  the  flabby  one.  The 
taxed  and  active  brain  may  quit  its  work  and 
begin  to  dawdle.  But  when  we  have  made  all 
these  changes,  we  must  have  somebody  ready 
to  take  care  of  us.  It  has  always  been  possible 
for  a  few  folks  to  live  an  uneventful,  dreamy,  idyllic 
life.  They  have  few  wants,  a  limited  knowledge, 
166 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

and  a  consciousness  unaroused  to  any  special 
purpose;  and  they  are  able,  apparently,  to  slip 
along  without  much  graving  of  the  rocks  any- 
where; but,  on  the  whole,  they  are  of  no  value  to 
themselves  or  to  the  world.  Tension  is  vital  to 
advance.  The  human  spirit  comes  to  know  its 
own  higher  capacities,  and  their  value,  only  as  it 
consents  to  touch  the  live  wire  of  a  many-sided 
experience.  A  certain  Russian  literary  artist 
thinks  it  a  flaw  in  his  work  that  he  can  not  give 
joy.  He  would  probably  do  that  at  the  risk  of 
his  powers;  for  his  pictures  of  the  cruelties  of 
Russian  life  constitute  his  appeal  to  men.  He 
buffets  the  world  with  the  distress  of  his  country- 
men. He  throws  up  a  distress  signal  from  a 
region  where  the  rights  of  the  common  citizen 
have  not  yet  been  made  secure.  He  moves  free- 
men with  a  spectacle  of  injustice.  The  wrongs  of 
tyranny  cause  sorrow,  and  the  sorrow  commands 
attention.  The  sympathies  of  any  liberated  people 
are  on  the  side  of  the  man  who  is  socially  down 
and  under. 
The  Mystic  Appeal  of  Sorrow. 

Life  is  on  a  minor  key  with  large  numbers  of 
people,  because  they  have  felt  so  much  pain.    And 
they  are  altogether  admirable  folks.     The  chas- 
167 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

tened  spirit,  the  quiet  approach,  the  charitable 
view,  the  subdued  tone,  the  charm  of  courtesy, 
the  winsome  humility,  the  devout  contentment — 
these  are  virtues  born  of  suffering,  often,  and  they 
have  the  charm  of  a  positive  refreshment. 

"I  plucked  a  feather  from  an  eagle's  wing, 

And  thought  to  write  a  song  of  epic  might, 
Whose  deep-toned  music  would  men's  dreams  excite 
And  plaudits — which,  as  seas,  should  swing 
In  ever-widening  billows,  and  should  ring 

Like  living  laughter  that  would  change  the  night 
And  silence  into  joy  and  grace  and  light, 
And  make  its  glooms  and  solitudes  to  sing. 

I  wrote,  and  no  one  read  my  poem  through. 
And  then  I  found  a  feather  from  a  mourning  dove, 

Dropped  from  its  wing  in  flying  through  a  wood, 
And  wrote  a  psalm  of  pain  and  pity,  true 
To  life,  and  tender  with  immortal  love: 

And  weary  hearts  both  read  and  understood." 

— Quayle. 
Is  Nature  Gruel? 

Joseph  Conrad,  a  writer  of  the  sea,  describes, 
in  graphic  fashion,  a  rescue  of  the  survivors  of  a 
water-logged  derelict  which  had  been  drifting  in 
mid-ocean  for  weeks.  The  merciless  struggle 
which  the  survivors  had  made  was  at  last  too  much 
for  them,  and  their  hearts  were  broken  and  delir- 
ium set  in.  After  the  crazed  ones  were  taken  off, 
and  the  sinking  brig  went  down,  Conrad  describes 
his  own  feeling  about  it  in  this  way:  "I  looked 
168 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

with  other  eyes  on  the  sea — my  conception  of  its 
magnanimous  greatness  was  gone.  I  looked  upon 
the  true  sea — the  sea  that  plays  with  men  until 
their  hearts  are  broken  and  wears  stout  ships  to 
death.  Nothing  can  touch  the  brooding  bitter- 
ness of  its  heart;  open  to  all  and  faithful  to  none, 
it  exercises  its  fascinations  for  the  undoing  of  the 
best."  The  beauty  and  the  pathos  of  that  state- 
ment saves  it  from  petulance.  When  a  boy  strikes 
his  foot  against  a  stone  he  gets  out  of  patience — 
with  the  stone.  Mr.  Conrad  has  slept  many  a 
night  in  security  with  only  a  plank  between  him 
and  the  ocean's  depths.  The  sea  which  he  thus 
describes  could  furnish  a  clean  grave  for  each  one 
of  the  millions  who  ply  their  crafts  on  its  waves; 
but  only  on  rare  occasions  does  disaster  overtake 
them.  Across  the  sea  our  dear  ones  come  and  go 
in  comparative  safety.  The  sea  makes  the  world 
habitable;  and  it  has  become  a  highway  for  human 
fellowships  and  federations. 

Majesty  and  terror  sleep  there,  and  wake  at 
infrequent  times.  It  is  indeed  destructive  to  those 
forms  of  life  which  have  no  adaptation  for  living 
in  it.  But  the  bulk  of  the  world's  life  plays  in 
rapturous  joy  beneath  its  waves.  The  most  gor- 
geous palaces  of  all  life  are  there.  A  human  drops 
169 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

in  now  and  then,  which  is  pathetic,  from  the 
human  side,  not  because  of  the  sea,  but  because 
of  the  instinct  of  life  in  the  human.  There  is  no 
sorrow  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  when  the  denizens 
of  the  earth  drop  in.  The  fishes  do  as  they  are 
done  by.  The  human  resentment  against  any 
tragical  aspect  of  creation  is  a  partial  view,  or  no 
view  at  all.  The  natural  system  has  an  august 
dignity  which  does  not  bend  to  sentiment  where 
the  steady  going  of  a  law  is  involved;  but  she  has 
no  betrayal  for  the  obedient.  Occasional  culmi- 
nants  of  force  seem  terrible — but  the  system  is 
not  of  that  kind. 

Animals,  in  fright,  or  in  the  death  moment, 
are  doubtless  in  terror,  because  the  ever-present 
struggle  is  with  them,  as  with  all  life;  but  they  do 
not  live  in  that  state.  Beneficently  the  narrowest 
of  escapes  leaves  not  a  single  tremor.  Moments  of 
hazard  are  often  exhilarants.  They  are  occasions 
for  bringing  out  perfections  of  speed  or  skill  in 
the  strife  to  live.  Nature  appears  to  be  intentful 
about  the  improvement  of  the  species.  She  does 
not  send  a  fine  young  warrior  to  fight  her  battles 
for  a  better  type  of  his  kind  without  providing 
him  with  adequate  mental  and  bodily  training. 
170 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

This  he  gains  along  with  his  growth  in  incessant 
struggles  with  his  playmates;  for  at  birth  she  has 
implanted  within  him  an  insatiate  passion  for 
rough  play.  He  masters  the  fine  art  of  defending 
vulnerable  points  in  mimic  war.  Much  practice 
renders  his  actions  in  defense  as  instantaneous 
as  the  automatic  blinking  of  a  threatened  eye. 
But  where  one  survives  many  go  down.  The 
masterful  bull  of  the  prairie  herds  is  always  a  fine 
fellow,  and  in  his  get  are  the  potencies  of  an 
improved  species;  but  he  has  come  to  his  place 
through  a  hundred  battles  without  a  single  de- 
feat. The  vanquished  also  belong  to  nature's 
scheme.  The  conflict  yet  means  to  them  that 
every  living  thing  must  be  at  its  best.  The  strug- 
gle they  have  made  for  mastery  is  an  approach 
towards  perfection.  The  weaker  individuals  take 
second  place,  but  that  place  is  in  the  direction  of 
proficiency  and  progress.  The  defeated  ones  are 
more  sinewy  for  having  felt  the  strength  of  the 
giant.  When  we  come  closely  to  look  into  the 
action  of  this  kind  of  law,  and  its  results,  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  of  a  kindlier  or  better  pro- 
vision for  the  perpetuation  and  improvement  of 
life  forms. 

171 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Principle  of  Self-Giving. 

The  physical  life  is  shifting,  tentative,  provi- 
sional, and  is  not  a  supreme  goal.  A  thing  is  not 
essentially  immoral  because  it  inflicts  pain  or  de- 
feats the  smooth  way.  The  voluntary  surrender 
of  life  is  often  heroic.  Some  of  the  most  prized 
possessions  of  the  race  have  been  purchased  by 
sacrifice  and  death.  The  exigencies  of  history 
often  demand  a  large  life  offering.  Life  touches 
the  high  point  of  its  value  when  it  is  thrown  down 
in  the  name  of  liberty  and  human  right.  The 
larger  question  about  the  body  is  not  whether  it 
is  sick  or  well,  whether  it  lives  or  dies;  but  whether 
or  not  it  serves  its  function.  When  the  death  of 
a  patriot  contributes  to  the  happiness  of  the 
race,  his  life  is  not  lost.  When  the  body  can 
render  that  sort  of  service  it  is  worth  while  to 
live — worth  while  to  die.  The  memory  of  such 
an  act  is  always  held  in  universal  veneration. 
Life-giving,  in  that  way,  is  cosmic  gain.  Life  is 
often  the  cost  of  that  which  is  worth  what  has 
been  paid  for  it,  dear  as  life  is.  Whenever  the  issue 
comes,  and  a  man's  flesh  creeps,  he  is  a  softling. 

But  the  principle  of  survival  through  conflict, 
with  its  limited  altruistic  intimations,  is  only  one 
feature  in  the  evolution  of  life  forms.  The  lowest 
172 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

life  units  with  which  we  are  acquainted  are  held 
by  the  law  of  mutual  dependence.  The  predom- 
inant impulse  of  the  cells  is  to  give  themselves 
utterly  to  the  increase  of  life.  They  rush  with 
hilarious  joy  to  their  own  undoing — that  is,  to  an 
extinction  into  multiples.  The  process  of  cell 
division  is  cell  response  to  the  cause  of  life.  The 
cells  may  not  be  aware  of  the  higher  complexes 
into  which  they  enter,  but  they  give  obedience  to 
the  life-law  of  the  larger  unit.  The  cell  realizes  on 
its  own  investment  when  it  gains  identification 
with  the  larger  life.  It  gives  to  get.  We  see  the 
action  of  the  law  of  mutual  dependence  and 
mutual  helpfulness.  So  also  the  higher  organisms 
are  composed  of  closely-related  organic  functions, 
which  have  no  normal  independent  action.  The 
disjointed  action  of  an  organ  is  impossible.  "The 
eye  can  not  say  unto  the  hand,  'I  have  no  need 
of  thee.'"  Relatedness,  dependence,  helpfulness, 
mutuality  are  distinguishable  ethical  factors  in 
the  action  of  the  lowest  life  forms.  "The  first 
chapter  or  two  of  the  story  of  evolution  may  be 
headed  the  struggle  for  life;  but  take  the  book 
as  a  whole,  it  is  not  a  tale  of  strife;  it  is  a  love 
story."  (Drummond.) 

The  life  sciences  have  in  them  this  romance. 
173 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

^ 

The  dominant  note  is  altruistic.  The  ethic  is  one, 
from  side  to  side,  in  the  narrow  strip  of  life.  In 
the  ascent  from  the  micro-organisms,  ethical  cor- 
respondences increase  with  the  complexities  of  a 
growing  world;  and  when  we  have  that  under- 
standing we  have  the  key  which  opens  the  way  to 
the  controlling  elements  in  the  human  life.  Man's 
nature  is  not  alien  to  that  from  which  he  has 
been  derived.  His  moral  sensibilities  root  them- 
selves cosmically,  as  surely  as  do  his  physical 
powers. 

Collectivism. 

The  law  of  collectivism  is  active  from  the  hu- 
man plane  down  to  the  simplest  plasm  germs. 
Wheat  heads,  grass  blades,  corn  stalks,  forest 
leaves — all  die  for  the  common  weal.  Any  grass- 
blade  which  conies  to  perfection  has  had  an  as- 
sociative history.  Seeds  and  bulbs  and  rootlets  do 
not  reach  maturity  alone.  They  must  have  the 
help  of  those  of  their  kind,  and  they  must  give  as 
well  as  take.  The  trees  of  a  forest  strengthen  and 
support  one  another.  The  finest  colorings  of  the 
flowers  are  where  they  grow  in  acres.  When 
birds  flock  together,  each  individual  is  advantaged. 
Animals  do  best  in  herds.  The  sleuth  habits  of 
174 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

the  carnivora  threaten  their  extinction.  Those 
forms  of  life  prosper  best  which  show  most  af- 
fection. The  law  of  ultimate  survival  is  attractive, 
and  not  coercive.  Enormous  as  are  the  scars  of 
tooth  and  claw,  that  feature  of  the  animal  life  is 
not  the  prevailing  one  in  shaping  nature's  way. 
Among  the  gregarious  animals,  the  end  of  war 
is  the  beginning  of  prosperity.  The  first  grim 
lesson  of  sanity  for  both  sides  in  a  war  is,  "This 
is  not  the  way  to  do  it."  Then  they  make  peace. 
And  the  greatest  things  man  knows  of  liberty  and 
progress  have  had  their  finest  expressions  in  the 
times  when  the  arts  of  peace  have  prevailed. 
"Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men"  is  the  highest 
of  all  proclamations  because  it  appeals  to  the 
fealties  of  the  human  heart.  Federations,  frater- 
nities, brotherhoods  grow  out  of  it.  There  is  noth- 
ing segregated.  Nothing  exists  alone.  No  stray 
atoms,  no  wandering  worlds  broken  from  their 
places.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an  unrelated 
existence. 

Humanly  speaking,  selfishness  may  seem  prof- 
itable at  first.  The  idea  of  being  cut  away  from 
other  people's  rights  is  superficially  attractive. 
The  prodigal  felt  cramped  with  the  father's  family 
life.  Its  mutual  dependencies,  its  essential  re- 
175 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

straints,  and  its  common  possessions  hindered 
him,  as  he  thought,  and  he  believed  he  could  get 
along  better  in  unrelated  living;  but  when  he  took 
the  step  he  insulted  a  fundamental  law  of  life. 
What  we  call  sin — the  whole  of  it  is  born  of  that 
mental  blunder.  "Sin  is  selfishness."  (Downey.) 

Responsibility. 

That  nature  is  good  in  its  massed  movements 
is  a  truth  of  appreciation  largely.  The  whole 
problem  bulks  too  large  for  the  reason.  We  have 
the  confident  assurance  that  an  all-pervading  mind 
means  to  enthrone  justice  finally.  We  see  an 
"irresistible  passion  which  billows  in  the  direc- 
tion of  righteousness."  (McConnell.)  Then,  from 
the  larger  conception  of  the  power  which  ordains 
such  an  outcome,  we  are  impelled  to  the  belief 
that  all  the  modes  and  movements  of  matter, 
from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  must  be  under  a 
moral  as  well  as  under  a  physical  code. 

An  indifferent,  a  neutral,  elemental  force  will 
not  be  found  anywhere.  By  this  we  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  the  problems  of  Euclid  will  show  signs 
of  a  conscience  measured  by  the  human  standards; 
but  we  do  mean  to  say  that  they  have  an  ethic  of 
their  own — that  their  center  of  draft  is  the  eternal 
176 


PLEASURE  AND  PAIN. 

righteousness.  Therefore,  when  we  have  put  a 
right  estimate  on  the  moral  values  of  human 
history,  we  will  find  also  that  the  laws  of  creation 
respond  in  sympathy  and  that  the  human  life  is 
at  no  time  cosmically  disconnected.  What  man 
is  nature  is.  The  ground  and  authority  of  human 
law  projects  itself  into  the  nature  of  the  world  of 
life  and  being,  from  which  the  human  has  never 
been  detached.  The  theory  that  moral  ideas  are 
only  a  result  of  the  reactions  of  the  associative  life 
of  the  world,  and  are  the  conventionalities  of 
society,  therefore,  is  not  tenable  because  it  breaks 
down  in  practice.  A  moral  law  strong  enough  for 
the  slums  must  connect  itself  with  the  universe. 
All  within  and  without  is  one  piece.  The  dissonant 
notes  as  to  what  right  is  and  what  wrong  is,  in 
any  given  case,  are  notes  of  interpretation.  If 
we  do  not  know,  we  are  to  find  out,  and  destiny 
is  involved  in  getting  an  answer.  We  are  subject 
to  the  reality  in  things,  and  we  must  bend  our 
pride.  Ignorance  at  this  point  is  a  radically  ad- 
verse fact.  Open  disobedience  is  disaster.  This 
broad  cosmic  law,  which  relieves  creation  of  its 
confusion,  turned  selfward  and  searched  to  the 
bottom,  means  for  the  human  life  its  personal 
responsibility  to  the  universe. 
12  177 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Glad  as  we  might  be,  under  stress  of  circum- 
stance, to  have  obliterated  the  turpitude  of  an 
evil  course  under  any  softening  hypothesis,  there 
is  no  escape  under  such  a  plea.  The  criminal  does 
not  go  free  by  getting  through  the  night  into  the 
next  morning,  or  by  living  across  a  span  of  years. 
He  may  escape  his  hanging — he  will  not  escape 
his  deed.  Our  actions,  therefore,  are'  invested 
with  a  tremendous  majesty.  Our  duty  to  the 
moral  law,  cosmically  derived  and  being  tried 
out  among  men — have  we  met  it — or  have  we 
dodged  it?  Will  any  man  dare,  with  this  view 
before  his  eyes,  take  smooth  turns  and  quirks  for 
momentary  advantages;  will  he  play  the  shirk, 
and  then  face  the  divine  everlasting  night  of  death 
with  his  record  when  it  is  morally  certain  the 
very  stars  fight  against  him? 


178 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ENDLESSNESS. 

Naturalism. 

THE  crown  of  culture  at  this  time  is  an  over- 
mastering naturalism.  Tradition  is  dead — so  is 
teaching  by  authority — and  signs  and  wonders  no 
longer  make  the  supreme  appeal.  Whatever  is 
verified  by  the  terms  of  knowledge  has  place  and 
standing.  It  would  be  difficult  to  overestimate 
the  general  value  of  the  tendency  to  constantly 
make  severer  the  tests  of  truth.  The  growing  im- 
patience of  the  last  fifty  years  to  reduce  things  to 
their  lowest  terms  has  been  followed  by  great 
achievements  in  the  realms  of  exact  knowledge. 
But  such  a  dogged  demand  for  verifiable  fact  has 
threatened  to  hammer  the  human  imagination  to 
death.  Often  the  logic  of  the  situation  has  looked 
as  if  music  and  poetry  and  beauty  and  the  other 
fine  arts  had  come  upon  evil  days,  and  must, 
perforce,  step  aside  and  let  the  grim  demonstrable 
realities  have  their  way  in  the  world.  But  the 
case  is  not  quite  so  serious  as  that.  As  soon  as 
179 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  facts  of  creation  begin  to  show  their  pedigree, 
they  show  themselves  akin.  Each  new  empirical 
advance  increases  the  human  appreciation  of  the 
vastness  and  the  unity  of  the  kingdom  of  truth. 
We  may  detect,  therefore,  among  educated  and 
thoughtful  people  a  growing  desire  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  things  in  the  broadest  way. 
If  the  universe  has  one  law  throughout,  why  not 
one  life  and  one  mind  throughout?  And  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  the  human  heart  quickly  gets 
into  that  kind  of  inquiry.  Cold  science  has  trouble 
with  the  affections  and  the  desires  when  it  begins 
to  ask  the  final  questions. 

Pragmatic  Values. 

In  a  sense  we  may  say  the  future  is  not  known 
because  it  is  beyond  experience.  The  sunrise  of 
to-morrow  at  most  belongs  in  the  realm  of  con- 
fident assurance.  We  have  no  scientific  proofs  of 
endless  being.  But  that  kind  of  line-drawing  with 
the  laws  of  evidence  limits  knowledge  to  the 
sensuous  avenues.  It  repudiates  the  cosmic  mind. 
It  is  a  theory  of  knowledge  with  which  feelings, 
hopes,  intimations,  aspirations  have  no  standing. 

Man  in  all  ages  has  expected  to  live — has 
wanted  to  live — has  believed  in  the  endlessness  of 
180 


ENDLESSNESS. 

his  powers.  And  if  all  of  that  is  no  more  than  a 
nebulous  unfounded  feeling,  it  has  yet  been  of  no 
detriment.  He  has  found  in  it  the  motives  to 
hope  and  patience  and  moral  courage.  When  we 
put  the  final  adjudications  all  into  the  present 
moment  we  put  despair  into  the  life,  because  many 
of  these  moments  are  thick  with  blackness.  There 
must  be  some  reason  somewhere  for  the  singular 
inclination  of  the  human  spirit  to  cling  to  that 
for  which  it  has  not  a  shred  of  experimental  evi- 
dence. In  the  first  place,  the  hope  of  endless  being 
is  a  positive  dynamic  in  the  practical  life  of  the 
race.  If  this  world  is  a  show-world,  if  it  is  a  dis- 
solving view,  if  its  elements  are  not  permanent, 
its  events  are  not  of  large  significance.  If  this 
mental  afflatus  is  only  a  flicker,  can  the  motives  of 
life  have  in  them  anything  of  a  higher  or  lower 
value?  The  part  which  is  to  carry  over,  if  there 
is  any  such  part,  must  certainly  have  primary 
significance.  If  there  is  anything  great,  it  is  that 
which  abides  the  tension  and  the  stress.  The 
outlook  is  with  that  which  gets  through.  If  a 
principle  is  priceless,  it  must  be  permanent.  It 
would  be  the  height  of  unwisdom  to  suffer  loss  or 
make  sacrifice  for  that  which  is  not  to  endure.  It 
is  clearly  rational  to  surrender  the  incidental 
181 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

thing  for  the  future  permanent  thing,  even  if 
those  who  make  the  surrender  do  not  reap  the 
fruits  of  it.  Patriots  and  heroes  have  done  this. 
The  Christ  did  it.  Men  will  go  to  their  death  in 
the  fight  for  righteousness  when  they  believe  in  a 
day  of  reckoning.  Life  always  has  a  higher  value 
when  it  is  considered  from  the  position  that  some 
of  its  elements  are  in  their  nature  non-temporal. 
If  ever  the  feeling  of  security  and  steadiness  can 
be  extracted  from  the  everlasting  flux  of  things, 
life  has  added  to  it  that  much  of  dignity.  If  it 
can  be  made  to  appear  also  that  the  human  per- 
sonality may  hold  over  in  the  wreck  of  forms — 
if  the  self-grip  of  its  correspondences  are  such  as 
to  make  credible  the  belief  that  it  survives  phys- 
ical dissolutions — if  its  self-conscious  reactions 
with  the  outer  world  take  on  the  appearance  of 
its  being  indestructibly  related  to  these  surging 
tides  which  beat  things  into  shape,  and  sover- 
eignly knead  them  as  the  potter  the  clay;  then  the 
worth  of  life  is  made  clear  and  its  motives  of 
virtue  and  honor  are  of  unquestioned  strength. 

The  Sense  Test. 

When  those  about  us  die,  plainly  the  whole 
being  goes  out  from  us,  and  the  inference  in  front 
182 


ENDLESSNESS. 

is  extinction.  So  far  as  we  know,  when  we  come 
to  rally  our  small  array  of  senses  on  an  event 
like  that,  we  say  of  our  friends,  "They  are  not." 
But  when  we  put  to  the  credit  of  physical  death 
the  extinction  of  the  whole  nature  of  man,  is  it 
not  possible  that  we  make  overmuch  of  sensuous 
deductions?  It  has  been  contended  already  in 
these  pages  that  even  a  physical  brain  is  not 
essential  to  the  action  and  integrity  of  mind.  It 
is  also  well  known  that  the  human  personality 
exhibits  very  great  independency  of  the  states 
and  conditions  of  the  flesh  formula.  It  can  rise 
up  in  reflective  consideration  and  say,  "When 
my  body  gets  sick  I  send  for  the  doctor."  That 
kind  of  initiative  and  creative  power  can  not  be 
classed  with  the  plain  chemical  disintegrations  of 
physical  death. 

Endlessness  of  Influence. 

There  are  certain  endless  consequences  to  the 
energies  of  any  human  life  which  no  one  doubts. 
We  speak  accurately  when  we  talk  of  influences 
which  go  out  never  to  return — never  to  die.  The 
way  of  any  life  is  an  endless  projection — an  end- 
less progression.  The  conservation  of  the  per- 
sonal forces,  as  a  natural  principle,  is  as  clearly 
183 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

established  as  the  conservation  of  the  forces  of 
matter.  Our  feelings,  our  thoughts,  our  actions 
appear  again  in  others,  and  go  on  repeating  them- 
selves indefinitely.  The  poet  Tennyson  had  the 
anthropomorphic  bias.  He  held  to  the  traditional 
idea  of  endlessness  as  an  exclusive  and  increasing 
separateness.  He  was  committed  to  the  view  of 
endless  being  which  holds  together  and  magnifies 
the  combination  with  which  he  had  become  con- 
sciously familiar.  He  said,  "I  should  consider  that 
a  personal  liberty  had  been  taken  with  me  if  I 
were  made  merely  the  means  of  ushering  in  some- 
thing higher."  Sound  thinking  will,  of  course, 
allow  him  to  take  out  the  word  "merely;"  but  the 
rest  is  life's  highest  practical  ideal.  The  life  is 
exalted  as  its  potencies  are  sent  out  to  become  an 
undiminished  power  in  the  world.  This  slipping 
of  the  consequences  of  human  action  and  achieve- 
ment into  the  universal  life  currents,  to  be  con- 
served under  new  and  evolving  forms  perpetually, 
is  an  inspiriting  view.  Endlessness  of  influence 
has  in  it  the  endless  adjudications.  Retributions 
and  rewards  take  to  themselves  more  time  than 
the  personal  life  or  history  gives  them.  The 
life  career  to  which  we  belong  is  too  incomplete — 
too  fragmentary — to  express  the  judgments  of  an 
184 


ENDLESSNESS. 

unerring  administration.  We  create  that  which 
goes  out  to  mingle  as  a  drop  in  the  ocean.  Is  that 
so  bad?  How  can  that  which  we  do  take  up  more 
space  unless  it  is  bigger?  Our  largeness  here  con- 
sists not  in  the  space  we  fill,  but  in  the  capacity 
we  have  to  impress  ourselves  on  the  wholeness  of 
life's  projections.  Is  not  that  view  satisfying,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  and  attractive?  Even  under  the 
untenable  theory  that  the  diffusion  and  conserva- 
tion of  personal  energy  is  the  sole  form  of  endless 
being,  as  Mr.  Harrison  contends,  are  we  utterly 
bereft?  The  idea  itself  has  in  it  the  tremendous 
motive  to  get  at  something  and  achieve  before 
sundown.  ^ 

If  that  is  all  we  are  to  get,  the  idlers  and  do- 
nothings  had  better  be  stirring  around.  The 
whole  truth  is  not  there;  but  this  truth  is — unless 
we  get  that,  we  will  not  get  anything  more.  The 
useless  life  waiting  for  an  immortal  crown  is  a 
cosmic  burlesque.  But  any  honest  man,  under 
the  action  of  this  great  law  o£  the  endless  pro- 
jections, may  go  to  his  work  in  the  morning  with 
the  understanding  that  if  he  dies  before  night  the 
work  he  finishes  and  sets  apart  will  not  get  into 
the  casket  with  his  body.  Any  sturdy,  sincere 
toiler,  therefore,  has  an  outlook,  for  what  he  does 
185 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

goes  into  a  stream  which  never  ceases  to  flow. 
Life's  potencies  touch  and  influence  others  con- 
stantly, and  with  consequences  which  do  not  be- 
come less  in  the  event  of  death. 

Social  Progress. 

The  law  of  the  transmission  of  personal  in- 
fluence is  the  principle  of  social  advance  which, 
with  whatever  increment  of  gain  it  may  show, 
reverts  again  to  the  individual.  The  center  of 
intent,  socially,  does  not  appear  to  be  in  the 
individual  first,  but  in  the  body.  As  the  law 
acts,  the  individual  is  not  disadvantaged.  All 
threads  of  personal  effort,  of  acquirement,  and 
inheritance  are  taken  up  and  woven  in  as  an 
expression  of  nature's  attention  to  the  mass.  The 
larger  social  unit  is  a  conservation  of  values.  The 
ideal  personal  energy  is  an  outgo,  and  not  an  in- 
take. A  stalk  of  corn  comes  to  maturity  to  dif- 
fuse itself  in  multiples  of  power — it  manifolds 
itself  into  other  units  like  itself.  It  is  nature's 
law  to  drive  the  energies  of  the  individual  out- 
ward to  constitute  the  energy  of  the  species. 
Individuality,  for  the  present,  is  the  advance 
agent  of  a  better  type.  The  personal  equation, 
186 


ENDLESSNESS. 

according  to  this  law,  is  measured  by  its  con- 
tribution to  the  future.  If  we  think  well  of  our- 
selves, we  must,  of  necessity,  think  well  of  our 
ancestors,  for  they  are  in  us  mystically.  Even  if 
we  are  to  be  snuffed  out  when  we  die,  it  could 
only  be  in  the  sense  in  which  we  have  been  snuffed 
in.  The  receipts  are  equal  to  the  expenses.  Con- 
clusive of  this  thought,  the  life  energy,  as  a  pro- 
jected influence,  is  not  a  grievous  outlook  for  the 
world's  workers.  Posterity  will  lift  its  hat  or 
curse  as  we  select,  and  in  that  is  a  motive  to  get 
busy  with  our  preference. 

Let  it  be  noted  that  the  personality  is  not 
taken  up  into  these  projected  influences,  and  that 
the  stronger  and  higher  intimations  of  personal 
endlessness  are  questions  apart  from  this  feature, 
which  is  only  to  be  given  credit  for  what  it  is 
worth  in  the  cumulative  argument.  Life  has  no 
explanation  by  that  law,  acting  alone.  Under  it, 
for  instance,  an  evil  life  becomes  a  remediless 
horror.  It  does  not  take  into  consideration  the 
tendencies  of  both  nature  and  history  to  burn  out 
the  evil  and  preserve  the  good.  If  the  universe 
has  an  ethic,  it  must  cleanse  itself  finally. 


187 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Heredity. 

The  law  of  heredity,  which  has  to  do  with  the 
transference  of  life,  affords  some  intimations  of 
endlessness.  Heredity  is  persistence  of  quality 
and  characteristic,  through  which  the  personality 
becomes  a  new  and  original  self-expression.  What- 
ever may  prove  to  be  the  true  theory  of  the  phys- 
ical basis  of  heredity — whether  that  of  Darwin 
or  Weisman  or  Negeli  or  some  other  explanation 
not  yet  matured — the  fact  remains  that  the  most 
complex  mental  and  physical  and  moral  elements 
are  carried  forward  from  life  form  to  life  form 
along  very  simple  states  of  matter.  The  range 
of  the  properties  of  matter  are  now  known  to  be 
so  great  that  a  single  atom  might  become  the 
bridge  on  which  cross  over  measureless  potencies. 
In  the  world  of  inorganic  substances,  matter 
simply  wins  for  itself  its  forms  and  chemical 
states;  but  when  the  life  grade  is  reached  it  begins 
to  quiver  with  sensibility  and  to  come  to  a  state 
very  favorable  for  the  transfer  of  power  from  form 
to  form.  Living  molecular  aggregates  multiply 
themselves  and  transmit  their  qualities  across 
gossamer  threads  which  are  only  detected  by  the 
microscope.  Life  is  so  transmissive  of  its  own 
188 


ENDLESSNESS. 

virile  temperamental  features  that  even  acquired 
capacities  and  habits  show  strong  evidence  of 
yielding  to  the  law  of  heredity.  Mental  and  moral 
qualities  pass  from  generation  to  generation.  Na- 
ture appears  most  at  home  and  supremely  exhil- 
arant  where  it  begins  to  fill  infinitesimal  threads 
with  the  spiritual  forces.  A  complex  organization 
of  matter  is  not  necessary  for  the  transmission  of 
great  spirit  powers.  Matter,  in  its  simplest  or- 
ganized modes,  becomes  very  fruitfully  spirit- 
bearing.  We  know,  as  a  fact,  that  inconceivably 
great  and  masterful  forces  cross  a  tremulous 
thread  of  matter  from  one  unit  of  life  to  the  begin- 
ning and  building  of  another.  The  marvel  of  that 
which  we  know  takes  place  never  ceases  to  be 
great.  Scholarship  is  not  yet  ready  to  put  a 
limit  on  the  psychic  properties  of  matter.  What 
becomes  of  the  soul  in  physical  dissolution  we  do 
not  know,  but  we  do  know  what  the  capacities 
and  attributes  of  matter  and  spirit  are — co-ordi- 
nated at  equivalent  points.  The  positive  knowledge 
we  have  of  the  transfer  of  elements  out  of  which 
the  personality  is  builded  are  intimations  of  a 
probable  like  survival  at  death. 


189 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Stream  of  Life. 

Heredity  makes  a  distinct  contribution  to  the 
idea  of  a  stream  of  life.  The  naturalist  comes 
across  no  fact  which  would  lead  him  to  conclude 
that  the  life  stream,  from  the  beginning,  was  ever 
interrupted  or  ever  will  be.  We  can  not  think  of 
this  planet's  life  being  without  issue.  Its  powers 
have  a  smooth  and  unbroken  flow.  Life  ahead 
partakes  of  the  features  of  life  present.  The  get- 
ting of  that  which  is  into  that  which  is  to  come  is 
life's  great  business.  Its  expansions  and  fruitions 
are  also  prophetic.  Embryology  builds  a  life  within 
a  life  and  shows  it  a  way  to  escape  to  its  own 
fuller  expressions.  Life  in  gestation  breaks  away, 
directly,  into  parturition.  What  we  call  death  is 
only  the  breaking  of  certain  correspondences.  At 
no  time  do  all  the  correspondences  of  anything 
break.  Science  knows  no  dead  kingdom.  Every- 
thing is  alive  in  one  direction  or  another. 

The  laboratory  will  probably  never  manufac- 
ture life.  The  analysis  of  a  single  living  cell  puts 
despair  into  the  effort.  What  nature  does  about 
the  original  life  unit  is  another  matter.  Nature  is 
virile  in  the  spontaneous  production  of  life  forms. 
So  far  as  any  one  knows  to  the  contrary,  cases  of  it 
190 


ENDLESSNESS. 

may  be  found  in  any  square  rod  of  an  old  field. 
And  the  fact  is  proof  that  the  nexus  of  being  is 
organic  and  not  arbitrary.  It  means  that  the 
chemistries  of  the  soil  may  bloom  into  life  when 
the  conditions  arrive.  The  two  kingdoms  are  psy- 
chically interlaced.  The  power  to  produce,  de 
novo,  a  life  unit  is  easy  with  nature.  Will  the 
human  life  unit  be  projected  into  the  endless 
future?  We  have  not  seen  the  performance.  We 
have  seen  the  action  of  a  law  which  is  equal  to  it. 

Man  and  Death. 

In  the  reflective  consideration  which  man  gives 
to  the  subject  of  death  he  is  a  solitary.  An  ani- 
mal will  struggle  to  escape  death,  but  it  shows  no 
sorrow  or  grief  over  its  hazards.  A  sparrow  will 
escape,  by  the  pluck  of  a  feather,  the  talons  of  the 
hawk,  and  in  a  moment  the  alarm  is  gone  and  the 
unconscious  joy  of  life  returns.  The  bird  lacks 
the  capacity  to  appreciate  the  tragic  features  of 
death.  Man  also  struggles  to  the  limit  of  his 
power  to  escape  death;  and  he  also  thinks  of  it 
beforehand — of  its  mysteries  and  its  consequences. 
Its  meanings,  its  interests,  its  perplexities  have  al- 
ways attracted  attention  to  themselves  in  a  man- 
191 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

ner  strongly  to  suggest  that  he  may  be  related  to 
death  in  another  way. 

No  Extinction  of  Being. 

We  have  no  experience  of  the  extinction  of 
being.  The  survival  of  the  elements,  in  all  changes 
of  material  form,  is  an  established  scientific  dogma. 
When  organisms  fall  into  decay  their  elements 
are  distributed.  Nature  never  gets  weary  of 
working  over  its  frayed  and  used-up  material. 
It  takes  the  decayed  parts  of  dead  organisms, 
turns  them  about,  and  fashions  them  again  into 
forms  of  freshness  and  beauty.  Philosophy  and 
biology  are  in  agreement  about  the  meaning  of 
death,  in  itself  considered.  A  blind  man  is  dead 
to  sight.  A  deaf  man  is  dead  to  sound.  When 
death  completes  itself,  all  avenues  like  these  have 
been  closed.  But  there  is  as  much  doing  as  ever. 
The  magnetism  of  life  breaks  at  one  point  and 
attaches  at  another.  It  breaks  to  catch.  The 
death  incident  is  the  handmaid  of  survivals. 
Chemical  survivals  are  the  feeders  of  life.  Biolog- 
ically death  is  a  bridge.  "It  is  not  quickened 
except  it  die."  A  grain  of  wheat  is  a  wrapped-up 
unit  of  life.  When  it  decays  the  life  principle  goes 
out  to  its  multiples.  The  new  life  comes  up  out 
192 


ENDLESSNESS. 

of  the  decaying  grain.  In  terms  of  exact  thought 
it  is  a  resurrection — the  only  kind  nature  knows 
anything  about.  The  grub  survives  in  the  butter- 
fly. The  butterfly  comes  into  being  through  the 
grub.  There  is  a  somewhat  in  the  grub  which 
escapes  into  the  butterfly.  The  unit  of  one  form 
breaks  out  into  the  unit  of  another — and  it  breaks 
back  directly.  It  is  nature's  fantasy — and  she 
has  myriad  instances  like  it. 

It  has  been  said  that  Butler's  Analogy  here 
is  illegitimate,  because  a  spirit  fact  can  not  be 
constructed  out  of  the  material  on  earth.  But 
we  face  first  a  fact,  and  not  an  analogy.  Indubi- 
tably, a  spirit  fact  is  manifested.  We  apprehend  a 
transference  of  life  potency  into  a  new  form.  Does 
any  one  question  that?  The  fact  of  nature's 
capacity  is  then  established.  Certain  psychical 
identities  have  had  a  shift.  When  we  know  that 
the  world  of  life  fairly  plays  with  transformations 
like  this,  nature's  power  to  transfer  the  psychic 
unit  from  one  form  to  another  can  not  be  ques- 
tioned. Let  the  analogies  go?  Butler  may  have 
overworked  them  and  some  of  his  followers  may 
have  made  them  absurd.  Nature's  doing  here  is 
a  dead  shot  to  materialism. 

13  193 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Life's  Redundancies. 

Smallwood  says  of  the  lower  organisms — those 
composed  of  a  single  cell:  "The  parent  does  not 
die,  but,  as  a  result  of  the  division,  there  are 
now  two  individuals  where  before  there  was  one. 
Each  moner  passes  beyond  its  individual  life,  but 
it  merges  into  two;  and  the  two  into  four;  and 
the  four  into  eight,  and  so  on.  Nature  has  not 
provided  for  any  ending  to  this  law  of  increase. 
While  the  extinction  of  cells  and  of  life  forms 
accompanies  this  process,  and  holds  its  otherwise 
limitless  multiples  within  bounds,  the  life  stream 
never  ceases  to  flow.  In  the  process  of  life  known 
as  gemmation  the  life  potency  is  such  a  redun- 
dance that  the  death  element  is  a  mere  incidental 
to  the  main  business,  which  is  the  effulgence  of 
life.  In  the  generative  act  among  the  higher 
organisms  millions  of  sperm  cells  are  thrown  about 
the  ovum,  and  all  go  to  their  death  but  one.  Yet 
the  life  principle  at  that  point  is  the  supreme 
care.  The  holocaust  of  death  itself  is  a  make-sure. 
Death  there  becomes  the  servant  of  the  life  forces. 

In  the  case  of  the  complex  organisms,  super- 
ficially, the  massed  significance  of  the  greater  body 
puts  the  moner  out  of  view;  but  the  connected- 
ness of  the  life  stream  is  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
194 


ENDLESSNESS. 

moner.  The  formative  principle  of  the  cell  pos- 
sesses and  infills  everything.  Cell  division  goes 
ceaselessly  on,  and  at  the  same  time  relates  its 
work  with  the  larger  life  unit.  The  cell  carries 
with  it  the  vast  investment  of  life's  unbroken 
stream  without  being  unhitched  from  its  com- 
plexes. And  now,  to  speak  softly,  this  is  endless 
life,  rather  than  endless  individual  identity. 

The  Human  Personality. 

The  common  mind  of  the  race  will  not  con- 
sider the  above  intimations  of  very  great  value 
for  the  reason  that  they  do  not  satisfy  the  heart's 
interest.  They  are  too  impersonal,  too  dim,  too 
far-away,  and  slightly  too  unselfish. 

The  searching  question  about  endlessness  cen- 
ters in  that  clearest  of  all  apprehensions — the 
human  personality.  The  self-conscious  life  of  the 
mind  is  our  nearest  understanding  of  what  ul- 
timate reality  is.  It  is  the  norm  and  unit  of  all 
our  estimates  of  value.  The  personal  view  is  the 
controlling  view.  The  outside  world,  with  all  it 
may  mean,  is  at  most  a  mother  ground  for  the 
aspirations  and  fears  of  the  self-hood.  The  per- 
sonal unit  is  always  surer  of  itself  than  any  other 
reality.  It  is  known  that  the  human  personality 
105 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

preserves  its  identity  in  its  surroundings  and 
through  life.  But  does  it  persist  afterwards?  The 
world  of  induction  has  no  clear  answer  to  that 
daring  question.  It  has  some  brilliant  intimations 
which,  like  censers  thrown  out  into  the  shadows  of 
the  sky  at  night,  gleam  with  hope  and  anticipa- 
tion. 

The  New  Uses  for  the  Body. 

Personality  is  not  a  passing  phase  or  a  suc- 
cession of  sensations  or  a  mere  dynamic  of  the 
acting  perceptions  or  conscious  states.  It  is  the 
abiding  conscious  self,  with  a  sovereign  integrity 
of  its  own.  It  is  the  wholeness  of  the  mentality. 
The  progress  of  the  race  has  given  distinctness  to 
the  personality,  so  much  so  that  it  is  evidently 
shifting  the  physical  powers  into  new  directions. 
The  theory  has  been  prominent  among  scholars 
that  the  human  body  has  become  a  finished  prod- 
uct of  evolution.  The  body  at  the  present  time 
has  reached  a  point  of  adequacy  for  physical  needs, 
but  in  doing  so  it  has,  in  a  remarkable  way,  be- 
come subject  to  the  swifter  advances  of  the  re- 
flective intellect.  The  physical  life  has  been 
marked  for  a  new  day  and  for  new  uses.  Some  of 
the  older  adaptabilities,  such  as  the  capacity  for 
196 


ENDLESSNESS. 

endurance  or  the  brusque  vigor  of  life,  in  the  strife 
for  ascendency  are  weakening  under  the  finesse 
of  civilization.  The  ruder  giant  energies  of  the 
body  appear  to  be  veering  in  the  direction  of  re- 
finement and  accuracy  and  into  the  delicacies  of 
music  and  art  and  poetry  and  beauty.  As  a  re- 
sult it  has  become  a  finer  instrument  of  the  mind. 
But  these  are  only  the  beginning  days  of  these 
new  uses  of  the  body.  Man's  beastly  power  to 
wield  a  battle-ax  has  about  left  him.  His  brutal- 
ities are  more  and  more  being  referred  to  a  higher 
court  of  decision.  His  mastery  of  the  elements 
just  ahead  will  make  his  wars  archaic.  The  self- 
assertive  intellect  is  master.  The  center  of  interest 
is  mind.  The  body  is  now  on  its  way  to  ethereal- 
ization.  The  incursions  of  science  and  the  en- 
larged and  enlarging  apprehensions  of  the  universal 
relationships  of  being  strengthen  constantly  the 
timbre  of  thought.  An  exhaustless  kingdom  of 
truth  is  being  invaded  by  a  truth-gathering  intel- 
lect, which  makes  a  place  for  the  new  experiences, 
because  it  knows  no  limits  to  its  capacity  to  re- 
ceive the  truth.  What  an  unfathomable  recep- 
tacle the  mind  is!  What  hungry  outreachings ! 
How  it  feeds  on  the  truth  and  grows!  It  is  never 
filled  up — never  broken  down.  It  is  keyed  to  the 
197 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

universe  and  appropriates  it.  A  bottomless  mental 
nature  reacts  on  a  bottomless  realm  of  truth.  Is 
this  any  time  for  things  to  go  to  staves? 

In  What  Does  Endlessness  Consist? 

There  are  reasons  for  the  belief  that  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  mind  for  new  truth  involves  the  law 
of  its  own  continuance  of  being.  It  is  certain  that 
old  age  never  comes  to  the  truth-getter.  The  only 
abhorrent  death  is  an  atrophied  mind.  The  pur- 
est quality  of  life  we  know  is  an  upspringing  in- 
tellect. Research — knowledge-getting — by  any  of 
its  methods  is,  in  itself,  of  the  nature  of  an  end- 
less persistence.  It  is  not  enough  to  be  rational. 
The  capacity  for  reason  is  not  an  end  in  itself. 
In  the  utmost  realism  the  mind  reacts  against 
that  which  is  its  life;  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  the 
impact  is  endless.  The  human  personality  slowly 
approaches  a  completer  mastery  of  its  own  ex- 
periences. It  interprets,  time  after  time,  in  a 
better  way  the  nature  of  the  phenomenal  world. 
It  is  taking  larger  and  larger  account  of  the  values 
of  pure  reflection.  It  has  come  to  possess  itself 
so  thoroughly  that  resistance  to  its  advances  has 
reached  a  vanishing  point.  How  can  the  break- 
108 


ENDLESSNESS. 

down  of  the  flesh  formula  be  in  the  way  of  that 
kind  of  arrival? 

The  Maturity  of  the  Intellect. 

The  growth  of  the  intellect  towards  maturity 
is  an  approach  to  permanence  of  being.  We  ex- 
pect the  elements  of  character,  whatever  they 
may  be,  to  become  fixed  as  old  age  comes  on.  The 
physiological  explanation  here  is  also  the  philo- 
sophic one.  The  brain  is  never  active  without 
producing  certain  functional  and  psychic  con- 
sequences. To  illustrate,  take  the  rather  distress- 
ful fact  of  hallucination.  In  normal  sense  per- 
ception the  object  which  awakens  it  actually 
exists.  In  hallucination  it  does  not  exist.  It  is 
a  deceit  of  the  senses.  The  cause  of  the  vision 
must,  therefore,  be  inside  of  the  brain.  It  is  a 
mental  picture  which  the  imagination  has  co- 
erced. It  does  not  transcend  experience,  however. 
Nothing  exactly  like  the  picture  may  have  come 
to  pass  in  the  life,  but  the  picture  will  never  be 
utterly  strange  to  the  thought  life  of  the  subject. 

Then,  it  is  known  that  each  event  of  experi- 
ence leaves  a  certain  posit  in  the  brain.  The  brain 
cells  are  the  repositories  of  the  realism  of  sen- 
199 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

sation.  These  posits  are  permanent.  They  carry 
over  and  through  the  break-down  of  physical 
substance,  to  which  the  organ  is  subject.  The 
brain  cells  get  old  and  decay,  but  they  do  not 
carry  out  with  them  life's  accumulated  experi- 
ences. Cell  disintegration  goes  on  constantly, 
and  the  life  of  the  organ  is  conserved  through  con- 
stant renewals;  but  the  psychic  posits  of  experi- 
ence hold  over.  So  we  have  a  clue  to  that  much 
of  the  mystery  of  permanent  knowledge. 

Delbeauf  says:  "Every  impression  leaves  a 
certain  ineffaceable  trace;  that  is  to  say,  the 
molecules,  once  they  are  arranged  otherwise  and 
forced  to  vibrate  in  a  different  way,  will  not  re- 
turn exactly  to  their  original  state."  Whether  or 
not  each  sensation  demands  a  new  and  different 
molecular  vibration  need  not  here  be  decided.  If 
experience  is  a  graving  of  the  molecular  structure 
at  all,  it  is  ineffaceable,  because  it  becomes  inde- 
pendent of  the  flux  of  matter. 

The  permanent  elements  there  can  not  be  of 
the  same  nature  with  the  physical  particles  which 
get  themselves  shoveled  out  directly.  At  any 
rate,  it  comes  to  pass  that  one's  business  habits, 
sentiments,  feelings,  thoughts,  actions  all  make 
their  impact  on  the  brain  in  a  way  which  time 
200 


ENDLESSNESS. 

does  not  wholly  efface.  A  fact  like  this  is  im- 
portant, because  it  stands  for  the  truth  of  the 
proposition  that  after  any  conscious  event  of  life 
one  is  never  quite  the  same.  This  is  the  wisdom 
of  experience.  When  age  has  approached,  and 
the  brain  been  loaded  with  the  posits  of  the  past, 
it  becomes  more  or  less  dull  to  present  events. 
The  time  for  new  impressions  threatens  to  go 
by.  The  affairs  of  life  do  not  make  the  keen 
impress  of  the  earlier  years.  Our  aged  ones  are  a 
little  dull  to  present  things.  The  common  notion 
is  they  are  dying  to  the  real  values  of  life,  when 
the  fact  is  they  are  coming  to  permanence.  With 
old  folks,  beneficently,  circumstance  after  cir- 
cumstance slips  by  without  being  noticed.  The 
dull  vision,  the  deaf  ear,  the  lost  palate  for  sweet- 
meats accompany  the  fruitioned  brain.  Those 
who  have  used  life  wisely  sit  in  the  midst  of  the 
treasures  of  experience  with  the  assurance  that 
they  will  not  be  dispossessed  of  them  by  any 
turns  of  fortune  whatever. 

It  is  good  for  them  that  they  are  no  longer 
strung  for  the  strenuous  life.  If  they  were  as 
keenly  alive  to  all  things  as  in  youth,  they  would 
be  served  too  harshly.  They  have  come  to  where 
they  may  take  the  buffet  and  fury  of  life  un- 
201 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

moved.  They  are  not  so  keen  to  remember  or  so 
swift  to  acquire — they  have  the  dulled  sensibility 
and  the  reminiscent  temper  because  the  neurons 
are  full  and  the  mind  is  beginning  to  take  an  in- 
voice of  its  own  accumulations.  If  the  dulled 
senses  are  of  less  service  outwardly,  the  intellect 
is  given  opportunity  to  become  more  fully  alive 
to  whatever  is  of  most  worth  in  a  human  career. 
It  is  a  notable  fact  that  in  the  climacteric  years — 
say  from  sixty  to  seventy — all  intellectual  interests 
are  distinctly  enlarged.  The  constructive  intellect 
often  comes  to  an  end  before  the  end  of  the  years, 
but  the  mental  and  moral  integrities  remain  intact. 
Old  age  at  last  comes  with  its  childish  whimsi- 
calities, but  no  contradictions  of  character  appear. 
Positive  resentment  will  meet  any  attempt  to 
throw  the  life  then  out  of  its  currents. 

Physical  Decrepitude. 

Young  America  affects  contempt  for  age.  It 
is  the  dreaded  and  dreary  season.  It  is  the  down- 
grade. It  is  the  time  to  be  set  aside — to  be  put 
in  a  corner.  Old  folks  sometimes  live  too  long  on 
the  property  of  their  heirs.  When  the  life  has  to 
let  go  of  that  which  occupied  its  vigorous  years, 
it  is  supposed  to  be  empty  of  human  interest. 
202 


ENDLESSNESS. 

There  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun  after  we  cease 
to  go  about.  Memory  treads  the  wearisome 
ground  of  the  old  days,  and  wears  it  smooth  and 
bare.  When  the  face  is  wrinkled,  when  the  juices 
of  life  go  and  the  body  gets  on  crutches  and  under 
shelter,  the  life  is  supposed  to  be  finished.  Women 
resent  the  imputations  of  age.  Men  sham  youth 
till  the  gaze  of  eternity  gets  into  their  eyes.  What 
idiocy  of  pretense! 

Physical  decrepitude  is  a  negligible  incident  in 
any  well-furnished  life.  It  brings  inconveniences 
of  a  certain  kind,  but  it  does  not  interfere  with 
life's  best  acquisitions  and  lessons.  Grief  over 
the  decay  of  the  physical  powers  is  a  great  ab- 
surdity. The  reasons  for  a  long  life  have  been 
misunderstood  when  old  age  struggles  to  keep 
alive  the  desires  and  manners  of  youth.  A  gay 
old  man  is  always  a  gay  old  fool.  Nothing  worth 
while  ever  goes  into  decay.  The  world  gets  roomier 
as  the  days  go. 

Beauty  of  character  is  most  resplendent  in  old 
age.  Time  brings  out  the  finer  lines.  A  vicious 
life  at  first  appears  advantageous  and  desirable. 
A  life  of  sturdy  virtue  at  first  is  a  prosy  com- 
monplace. Give  the  two  time  to  run  into  old 
age  and  they  establish  the  moral  order.  We  do 
203 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

not  get  away  from  the  past  nor  get  by  the  present. 
The  present  makes  up  the  future.  That  which 
we  are  to  be  to-morrow  is  in  us  now. 

Consciousness. 

The  desirability  of  endless  being  evidently 
hinges  on  the  question  of  consciousness,  because 
that  is  the  self-appreciative  faculty.  The  term  is 
one  of  very  familiar  use.  To  be  conscious  or  to 
lose  consciousness  are  ideas  well  understood,  even 
by  those  who  do  not  pursue  their  own  mental 
states  further  'than  to  know  they  are  normally 
active.  Physiologically  speaking,  consciousness  has 
been  defined  as  a  manifestation  arising  out  of 
the  process  of  nervous  transmission  through  the 
ganglionic  centers.  That  is  about  equal  to  saying 
somebody  passed  our  door  this  morning,  for  we 
heard  the  rumble  of  the  carriage  wheels  on  our 
pavement.  Consciousness  is  awareness.  That  is 
its  simplest  definition.  The  term  signifies  a  men- 
tal state,  from  which  the  integrity  of  the  mind 
must  be  distinguished.  It  is  not  an  indiscerptible 
unit  nor  an  essential  concomitant  of  mind  action. 
It  is  not  a  dissolving  view  which  compels  that 
upon  which  it  is  conditioned  to  fade  when  it  does. 
The  life  of  the  mind  abides  in  the  come  and  go 
204 


ENDLESSNESS. 

of  consciousness.  Take  a  little  oxygen  out  of 
the  air  and  it  is  gone.  Hypnotism  will  extinguish 
it;  so  will  terror  or  religious  ecstasy.  It  records  a 
stream  of  impressions,  it  is  alert  to  the  spec- 
tacular, it  delights  in  lively  sensations,  it  listens 
to  stirring  music  or  speech  and  does  not  hear  the 
clock  strike.  It  shuts  down  at  night  and  wakes 
up  in  the  morning. 

There  are  no  difficulties  of  thought,  therefore, 
in  the  evidences  of  the  loss  of  consciousness  in 
physical  death.  The  fact  of  it  does  not  stand 
against  the  intimations  of  the  mental  permanence. 
It  is  neither  a  cause  nor  an  effect.  It  is  not  an 
entity  to  be  kept  from  perishing.  It  is  the  realiza- 
tion of  being  simply.  It  conditions  a  certain  grade 
of  being  and  certain  states  of  that  being.  We  rise 
into  it  like  a  bird  rises  into  the  air  and  light  of 
the  morning.  Insensibility  is  not  an  alarming 
situation.  Physicians  now  put  us  to  sleep  while 
severely  kind  things  are  being  done. 

This  view  does  not  at  all  undervalue  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  self-conscious  state.  The  point 
of  its  arrival  is  one  of  tremendous  import.  The 
capacity  for  reflection  begins  there.  It  is  the 
introduction  to  any  appreciation  of  the  self  and 
of  the  universe.  It  makes  possible  the  analytic 
205 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

and  the  synthetic  judgments,  and  opens  the  gate- 
way to  spirit  values  so  great  that  they  stagger  the 
imagination. 

Does  the  Personal  Unit  Go  Out  Embodied? 

The  question  of  consciousness  is  not  nearly  so 
perplexing  as  the  fact  of  physical  dissolution  in 
death.  Scientifically,  the  continuous  life  of  the 
spirit  necessitates  its  interaction  with  matter  with- 
out break.  We  have  no  evidence  whatever  of  the 
existence  of  thought  apart  from  substance  in  some 
form.  So  invariable  is  our  experience  of  spirit 
or  mind,  associated  with  matter,  that  if  our 
thought  undertakes  to  depict  a  non-material 
state  it  uses  material  figures.  The  savage  will 
imagine  his  after-life  with  pony  and  gun  and 
venison.  The  Oriental  thinks  of  crowns  and  pal- 
aces and  gold-paved  streets  and  retinues  of  serv- 
ants. No  mental  image  of  a  pure  spirit  state 
can  be  formed.  Continued  being,  without  some 
place  for  it,  is  an  impossible  thought.  The  room- 
iness of  the  universe,  with  so  much  in  it,  must 
enter  into  reality.  There  is  nothing  of  an  earthly 
experience  to  intimate  to  us  the  possibility  of  a 
disembodied  state.  Thought  becomes  impotent 
when  we  begin  to  struggle  with  the  idea  of  the 
206 


ENDLESSNESS. 

cessation  of  physical  substance.  Existence,  with 
substance  left  out — we  can  not  think  of  what  kind 
it  is.  We  do  not  wish  it.  It  has  no  motive  or 
appeal.  Not  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  is  the 
universal  feeling.  If  we  consider  this  life  in  any 
sense  a  preparation  for  a  possible  life  beyond, 
we  know  that  we  have  been  practiced  in  the  drill- 
room  of  materiality.  At  this  stage  of  our  knowl- 
edge the  scientific  requirement  is  that  we  go  out 
embodied  in  some  way.  We  must  grip  some  con- 
dition of  matter.  If  the  spirit  nature  be  con- 
ceived as  infinite  in  duration,  it  must  be  con- 
ceived as  transmitted  from  one  material  state  to 
another.  Matter  is  the  invariable  concomitant  of 
the  transmission  of  force.  At  the  present  time 
each  mental  act  is  accompanied  by  molecular 
changes  and  displacements  in  the  brain  substance; 
and  these  motions  are  evidently  responded  to  in 
the  universe  beyond.  Things  do  not  exist  apart 
from  their  properties.  We  interpret  the  proper- 
ties of  things  by  the  way  they  manipulate  material 
substance.  "We  can  not  imagine  the  exercise  of 
force  except  through  the  instrumentality  of  some- 
thing having  extension."  (Spencer.)  Philosophy 
can  not  overthrow  that  dogma  of  science  if  it 
would. 

207 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Vibrant  Universe. 

Let  us  now  go  as  far  as  we  know  and  not  under- 
take to  avoid  a  mystery.  The  universe,  in  a  re- 
markable way,  is  vibrant  with  transmitted  energy. 
It  is  like  a  mighty  dynamo,  sending  out  light  and 
heat  and  power,  to  turn  spindles  or  to  quiver 
with  intelligence  along  wires  overhead  or  under- 
neath the  ground,  or  along  the  bottom  of  the  seas, 
or  over  the  seas  without  wire — transforming  the 
planet  into  a  neighborhood.  Any  limit  put  on 
the  modes  of  matter  is  purely  conjectural.  When 
we  see  with  what  facility  nature's  forces  shift 
their  forms  in  the  chemistries  and  in  physics  and 
in  organisms,  we  may  take,  with  a  few  grains  of 
salt,  the  traditional  thinking  that  matter  and 
spirit  fly  entirely  apart  in  physical  death. 

It  has  already  been  shown  in  these  pages  that 
the  distinct  temperamental  characteristics  of  any 
human  life  which  have  been  differentiating  them- 
selves for  hundreds  of  generations,  and  over  thou- 
sands of  years  of  time,  may  cross  in  the  gener- 
ative act  along  a  microscopic  thread  of  matter  to 
constitute  a  new  personal  unit.  It  is  scientific- 
ally credible  that  a  unit  of  spirit  force  might  find 
wings  on  a  single  corpuscle,  to  pursue  its  destiny 
anywhere  in  the  realms  of  being.  Anyhow,  it  is 
208 


ENDLESSNESS. 

known  that  matter  exists  under  conditions  of 
tenuity  far  greater  than  the  senses  can  detect, 
even  with  the  help  of  the  finest  mechanisms.  If 
the  ether,  for  instance,  is  an  impalpable  form  of 
matter  so  tenuous  as  to  defy  microscopic  re- 
search— if  it  moves  between  the  particles  of  mat- 
ter as  freely  as  the  wind  blows  among  the  trees 
of  a  forest — we  are  estopped  from  doubt  about  the 
capacity  of  matter  to  become  an  invisible  media 
of  all  spirit  correspondences. 

Besides  all  this,  the  human  personality  is  the 
clearest  cut  and  ruggedest  form  of  earthly  energy 
known.  It  survives  tremendous  catastrophes. 
Its  memories,  its  accumulations  of  experience,  its 
self-conscious  sovereignties  maintain  themselves 
from  childhood  to  age.  It  has  maintained  itself 
in  a  physical  formula  which  has  been  all  the  time 
a  very  fire  of  conflagrations.  The  very  way  of 
life  looks  like  a  drill-room  of  the  personality  lead- 
ing towards  the  shift  it  is  to  make  with  physical 
death. 

Reversal  of  the  Law  of  Waste. 

An  attractive  intimation  of  endlessness  is  found 
in  what  may  be  named  the  reversal  of  the  law 
of  physical  waste.     The  law  of  economy  in  ma- 
14  209 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

terial  things  is  well  understood.  The  more  you 
spend  the  less  you  have.  The  toiler  can  not 
spend  his  wage  and  keep  it.  Physically  there  is 
an  outgo  which  does  not  return.  Effort  must  be 
made  to  replenish  waste.  Allowance  must  be 
made  for  wear  and  tear.  Those  who  control  vast 
industries  have  become  shrewd  in  the  knowledge 
that  economy  in  production  and  in  exchange  make 
all  the  difference  between  profit  and  bankruptcy. 
The  sorrowing  millions  who  have  not  mastered 
the  law  of  waste  get  hungry  and  thirsty  and 
struggle  in  the  marts  of  trade  to  get  and  to  hold. 
They  bend  themselves  to  the  one  business  of  mak- 
ing and  hoarding  money.  The  money  maker  is 
the  first  citizen.  Industrial  strife  is  a  bread  riot. 
Business  is  war.  Idle  luxury  lives  on  one  side 
the  street  and  cringing  penury  on  the  other.  Cap- 
ital and  labor  are  both  organized,  and  for  the 
same  reason.  Both  blunder,  and  both  are  de- 
ceived. The  lesser  things  are  thought  to  be  the 
greater.  The  situation  makes  the  heart  sick. 
Easily-applied  makeshifts — such  as  legislative  pan- 
aceas and  reformative  betterments,  or  another 
chance  to  go  and  vote — have  not  in  them  a  single 
heartening  thing,  for  the  sullen  stream  deepens 
and  widens.  Vast  numbers  come  up  out  of  it  and 
210 


ENDLESSNESS. 

walk  the  streets  and  highways  with  livid  faces. 
The  slums  reek  with  other  thousands  more  ut- 
terly degraded  than  the  world's  savages.  Cellars 
and  garrets  are  full  of  children  and  young  people 
who,  after  a  brief  hunger  for  sweetness  and  purity, 
are  swept  downwards  into  hopelessness  and  all 
moral  infamies.  No  soft-hearted  altruism  ever 
reaches  this  situation.  No  reformation  ever  makes 
a  rift  in  this  dark  Tartarus. 

A  little  higher  up — in  the  treadmills  of  the 
industries — are  other  millions;  honest  toilers,  un- 
consciously dying  an  aesthetic  and  spiritual  death. 
Beyond  these  in  the  fields  are  other  millions, 
worked  to  the  limits  of  all  endurance  because 
their  views  of  life  do  not  include  its  highest  values. 

What  failures,  what  wreckage,  what  scudding 
before  adverse  winds,  what  streams  of  tendencies 
stronger  than  men?  Is  it  not  possible  that  this 
world's  life  in  these  Western  lands  may  have 
moved  forward  with  some  of  its  prime  elements 
of  strength  and  prosperity  disastrously  under- 
estimated? May  it  not  be  so  that  men  are  wear- 
ing their  lives  away  in  pursuit  of  a  game  which  is 
not  worth  the  powder  and  shot?  It  may  be  the 
life  of  modern  civilization  itself  strikes  a  dissonant 
note.  Are  not  men  enslaved  and  killed  for  no 
211 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

adequate  reason  and  because  civil  society  itself 
lacks  the  life  vision?  As  long  as  men  are  compelled 
to  exhaust  themselves  in  the  crass  struggle  for 
bread  will  the  pain  of  living  ever  be  less?  Have 
not  the  royal  fountains  become  muddy?  Have  we 
not  put  a  first  estimate  on  relative  things  and  a 
second  estimate  on  absolute  values?  Is  not  any 
civilization  fundamentally  unwholesome  which 
tends  to  wean  the  common  mind  away  from  its 
mothering  in  a  world  of  absolute  spirit?  Is  not 
the  social  viewpoint  of  life  in  radical  error?  How 
could  any  active  principle  be  necessary  in  the 
personal  life  and  not  so  in  society?  Could  the 
lifted  vision — the  endless  motive — apply  to  the 
individual  and  not  to  society?  If  the  law  of  spirit 
values  is  supreme  for  the  personal  life,  can  it  then 
become  a  social  indifference  without  disaster? 

The  expenditure  of  force  in  the  spirit  world 
is  not  a  waste.  It  thrives  on  its  own  outgo.  Giv- 
ing doth  not  impoverish.  Withholding  doth  not 
enrich.  The  more  one  gives  the  more  one  has. 
A  fortune  bestowed  is  a  fortune  husbanded. 

Material    inheritances    may    be    alienated    by 

others   or   by   one's   self.      Spirit   possessions   are 

secure  against  invasion.    The  common  honesties — 

the  upright  life  without  ostentation,  the  practice  of 

212 


ENDLESSNESS. 

the  neighborly  spirit,  generous  recognition  of  the 
feelings  of  others,  the  disinterested  motive,  the 
sweet  humanities,  self-surrender  to  the  world's 
happiness — the  exercise  of  these  virtues  are  re- 
versals of  the  law  of  waste.  Wherever  they  are 
outwardly  co-ordinated  in  society  they  constitute 
an  investment  in  which  accumulations  are  com- 
pounded and  not  drawn  upon.  Shut-in  capacities 
are  starved  for  lack  of  use.  We  need  not  hesitate 
to  converse  or  to  give  out  knowledge  freely,  be- 
cause there  is  no  loss  to  the  giver.  The  press  is 
free,  and  books  and  libraries,  because  that  kind  of 
outgiving  is  under  the  law  of  intellectual  self- 
expansion.  Everybody  is  enriched  when  the 
truth  treasures  of  the  world  are  possessed  by  the 
poorest  of  the  poor.  Vast  sources  of  knowledge 
are  now  open  to  all  who  wish  to  make  use  of  them; 
because  no  sense  of  limitation  or  exhaustion  is 
ever  felt.  The  young  truth  seeker  to-day,  with  his 
first  moment  of  inquiry,  is  in  reach  of  these  un- 
wasting  accumulations.  In  mathematics,  for  in- 
stance, its  language  symbols  are  a  great  saving 
to  beginners.  They  start  with  formulated  state- 
ments of  what  the  ages  have  accomplished. 

The  multiplication  table,  the  equations  of  al- 
gebra, the  theorems  of  geometry,  logarythms,  the 
213 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

dry  figures  in  the  almanac  are  in  a  vital  way  in- 
heritances. With  them  the  studert  performs  the 
very  greatest  calculations  with  a  very  remnant  of 
work.  On  this  kind  of  storage  anybody  can  draw 
without  any  loss  to  the  bins  or  to  the  people  who 
filled  them.  The  motives  of  self-seeking  are  ab- 
sent in  all  the  things  which  we  can  have  without 
price  of  the  finished  labors  of  others.  If  we  add 
anything  to  our  spiritual  inheritance,  we  are 
profited  by  the  use  others  may  make  of  it.  The 
more  they  take  the  richer  we  are.  When  we  with- 
hold the  action  of  our  faculties  we  impoverish 
ourselves.  WTien  we  refuse  the  investment  of  a 
talent  we  bury  it.  The  world  may  get  along  with- 
out the  use  of  our  powers — we  can  not.  Often 
what  we  construct  is  an  evanescence.  WTe  are 
always  building  ourselves.  The  building  is  the 
builder.  This  is  life's  deepest  law.  It  has  in  it 
all  the  elements  of  permanence.  Under  its  action, 
the  royal  self  is  able  to  take  a  part  of  the  sub- 
stance of  all  experiences  and  transmute  them  into 
that  which  the  whip  of  any  cosmic  wind  will  not 
wear  away. 


214 


PART  II. 


CHAPTER  X. 

k 

THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

History. 

No  comprehensive  understanding  of  what  hu- 
man history  is  can  be  reached  by  the  sole  con- 
sideration of  the  subject  of  it  as  a  creature  of 
biological  and  chemical  changes.  Only  in  a  sub- 
ordinate way  is  man  a  physical  survival.  He  has, 
it  is  true,  come  to  a  supreme  position  in  the  king- 
dom of  life,  and  the  steps  by  which  he  has  reached 
this  vantage  ground  are  pretty  well  understood 
and  commonly  accepted.  But  the  human  life, 
as  it  is,  can  not  be  interpreted  under  the  action  of 
one  law.  The  human  body  may  be  an  ascent  from 
lower  forms  of  life,  but  it  is  not  so,  feature  by 
feature.  That  theory,  ingenious  as  it  is  and  ca- 
pable of  making  a  fine  show  for  itself  in  a  region 
where  cosmic  mind  brings  about  similar  forms 
for  similar  functions  everywhere,  and  where  the 
variations  of  form  and  function  are  almost  in- 
finite, has  never  been  proven.  It  requires  incred- 
ible reaches  of  time — incredible  stretches  of  the 
imagination.  Evolution  is  a  great  truth  in  the 
217 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

unfolding  and  development  of  life  forms,  but  it 
will  not  bear  the  onus  of  all  explanations.  Evo- 
lution must  be  made  to  consist  with  the  action 
of  psychic  law  in  nature,  and  that  introduces  the 
spontaneous. 

And  only  in  the  same  way  shall  we  have  any 
collective  understanding  of  the  race.  The  social 
instinct  may  be  depended  on  to  keep  human 
beings  together  in  families,  tribes,  and  nationali- 
ities.  And  very  much  may  be  known  of  the  ways 
of  men  by  the  events  which  have  been  chronicled 
of  them,  one  after  another.  How  they  have  lived 
together  and  increased  in  numbers  and  built  civil- 
izations and  left  enduring  monuments  of  art  and 
architecture  and  literature  and  law.  How  they 
have  also  turned  on  one  another  to  devastate  and 
destroy.  How  famines  and  pestilences  and  scourges 
of  many  sorts  have  eaten  them  up  by  the  million. 
How  conquest  and  diplomacy  is  constantly  shift- 
ing the  geography  of  nations.  How  the  arts  of 
peace,  in  favored  times,  have  grown  into  the 
ascendant  and  called  into  life  an  industrial  age 
and  sent  ships  of  interchange  and  commerce  into 
all  the  seas.  This  is  common  history  and  worthy 
of  record. 

But  the  temper  of  the  time  is  to  weigh  events 
218 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

by  a  kind  of  scale  which  often  magnifies  the  less 
spectacular  things  and  which  occasionally  puts 
the  affairs  of  the  world  out  of  joint  chronolog- 
ically. And  for  the  reason  that  man  has  come  to 
be  considered  the  subject  of  an  order  which  in- 
cludes more  than  his  human  associations  and 
fellowships,  and  which  identifies  him  with  the 
profounder  concerns  of  his  cosmic  correspondences. 
We  belong  to  a  political  and  social  and  religious 
order,  and  we  also  belong  to  a  scheme  too  great 
for  us  to  understand  much  about,  and  with  which 
we  do  not  have  very  much  to  do. 

The  planet  on  which  we  live  turns  on  its  axis, 
and  it  moves  in  the  plane  of  its  orbit  about  the 
sun — and  the  knowing  ones  tell  us  that  the  system 
to  which  we  are  attached  is  rushing  towards  an 
apex  of  its  own  at  the  rate  of  four  hundred  million 
miles  a  year.  We  are  not  sensuously  conscious  of 
any  of  these  movements.  We  are  in  the  grip  of 
them — we  can  not  help  ourselves. 

In  the  equipoise  of  tremendous  antagonism  we 
can  lie  down  and  go  to  sleep,  and  wake  up  cared 
for.  Neither  are  we  aware  of  the  numberless  in- 
fluences which  shape  our  social  career.  We  are 
daily  absorbed  in  the  projection  into  life  of  our 
own  little  energies,  and  as  they  go  out  from  us 
£19 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

we  are  able  to  see  somewhat  of  their  value.  We 
are  not  able  to  estimate  the  true  and  full  social 
effect  of  a  single  word  or  action.  All  the  words 
and  actions  of  a  single  life — of  all  lives — are  thrown 
out  a  hodge-podge — they  are  wrought  into  an 
order.  Above  the  prevision  of  any  life — of  all 
lives — we  get  the  sense  of  a  superforce,  which 
appears  to  be  kneading  the  human  forces  and 
which  guarantees,  somehow,  the  safety  of  the 
social  system.  We  can  no  more  understand  it, 
or  manage  it,  than  we  can  control  the  weather. 
We  are  not  great  enough  to  have  historic  causa- 
tion charged  up  to  us — we  are  not  good  enough. 
We  are  not  even  able  to  stand  by  and  appreciate 
the  modes  by  which  the  actions  of  individuals 
and  the  social  currents  are  co-ordinated  to  do 
service  in  the  determining  tendencies  of  the  world's 
life.  Many  of  these  modes  slip  by  us  unnoticed 
and  others  come  upon  us  like  divine  surprises. 
The  inquiry  we  make  here,  however,  is  healthful 
and  practical,  because  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
we  may  get  in  front  and  be  ground  to  powder. 

The  Swarming  Instinct. 

When  the  bees  swarm,  each  insect  is,  appar- 
ently,  held   absolutely  to   obey   the   hive  intent. 
220 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

When  the  new  queen  flies  out  into  the  air  to  call 
the  hosts  after  her,  it  will  be  noticed  that  the 
dividing  line  between  those  who  go  out  and  those 
who  stay  is  a  place  of  great  excitement.  The 
smallest  movements  there  decide  the  issue  for 
single  bees.  But  there  are  no  coercions,  no  hold- 
ing of  an  election,  no  detail  of  numbers.  Although 
the  situation  is  very  complex,  the  excitement  is 
not  a  confusion.  They  know  what  they  are  about 
without  knowing  they  know  it.  The  psychic 
forces  at  work  there  are  inherent — attractive;  and 
they  are  one  with  the  law  of  the  conservation  of 
the  species. 

Salmon  by  the  million,  at  ripening  time,  come 
out  of  the  deeps  of  the  ocean  and  ascend  the 
rivers  hundreds  of  miles  and  deposit  their  spawn. 
Then  they  abandon  it.  The  warm,  shallow  waters, 
the  ooze  of  the  shores,  the  bulrushes  and  grasses, 
the  detritus  of  the  mountains,  and  the  great  salt 
seas  again  appear  to  have  a  distinct  care  for  the 
life  of  the  species. 

The  ancient  Hyksos  hordes  swarmed  down 
into  Egypt.  The  Hebrews  swarmed  out  of  the 
deserts,  up  into  the  hill  country  about  the  Jordan. 
The  Moors  swarmed  clear  across  the  north  coast 
of  Africa  and  up  into  Spain.  Vandal  migrants 
*  221 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

swarmed  down  into  the  Mediterranean  countries. 
The  Crusaders,  with  an  unreasoning  impulse,  threw 
themselves,  time  and  again,  into  the  Asiatic  prov- 
inces in  futile  efforts  to  retake  the  Holy  City. 

Much  of  the  meaning  of  these  surges  of  the 
human  life  remains  profoundly  hidden.  They 
were  not  trumped  up.  They  do  not  belong  to  the 
logic  of  ordinary  events.  They  were  not  insani- 
ties. Impelling  forces  like  these  seem  at  times  to 
beat  down  on  the  mass  like  the  weather  or  the 
seasons.  The  beneficence  in  them  is  patient  and 
far-reaching,  shielding  the  race  from  wreck,  but 
not  from  strifes  and  confusions. and  reversals.  By 
no  sort  of  madness  are  men  able  to  close  out  the 
human  career — they  are  compelled  to  remain 
auxiliary  to  universal  tendencies.  This  feature 
of  the  doctrine  of  determinism  must  stand. 

It  does  not  call  in  question  the  freedom  of  the 
human  will  and  its  responsibilities.  The  personal 
will  has  free  play  to  the  end  of  its  hawser,  which 
is  the  outer  limit  of  the  human  capacity.  Indi- 
viduals may  give  speed  to  the  course  of  things. 
They  may  project  permanent  values  into  the  life 
of  the  world.  They  may  advantageously  block  the 
way  of  certain  tendencies,  as  sand  bags  on  a  levee 
may  shunt  the  rising  waters  ahead  in  the  channel. 
222 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

They  may  make,  for  a  time,  flat  resistance  to  the 
whole  current,  and  their  degree  of  success  will,  by 
that  much,  be  catastrophic,  because  a  great  river 
dammed  up  soon  breaks  all  bounds.  The  king 
did  not  stop  the  rising  tides  with  his  wand.  A 
midget  can  not  do  anything  with  a  giant's  load. 
We  are  in  the  grip  of  forces  greater  than  any 
conceivable  human  combination.  Free  will  and 
responsibility  are  involved  in  the  way  they  help 
or  hinder. 

Social  Conservations. 

Man  belongs  to  the  changeless  order,  there- 
fore. The  personal  life  has  an  orbit  of  its  own, 
but  it  is  included  in  the  orbit  of  the  associative 
life,  beyond  which  it  is  impotent  to  go.  We  tramp 
up  and  down  the  stairways  of  an  ocean  vessel; 
we  walk  from  stem  to  stern;  and  all  the  while  the 
vessel  holds  on  its  way.  The  huge  ship  hugs  a 
thousand  people  together  and  carries  them  all  in 
its  movement.  In  a  sense  the  individuals  need 
have  no  care  about  the  situation.  To  stay  on 
board  is  to  get  to  the  destination.  But  did  not 
men  build  that  ship,  and  are  they  not  running  it? 
De  novo,  no!  The  conservations  of  history  are  in 
a  ship.  The  harnessed  ocean,  the  measured  stars 
f  223 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

are  in  it.  For  thousands  of  years  men  have  worked 
on  the  patterns  of  an  ocean  liner,  and  only  a  few 
finally  got  the  stuff  together  and  finished  the  job. 
In  some  such  way  the  larger  movements  of 
humanity  are  made  to  compass  the  energies  and 
the  plans  of  individual  men  and  put  them  together 
and  lift  them  up  into  the  broader  unities  which 
never  fail  to  show  themselves,  with  time  given. 
Demagogues,  theorists,  social  reconstructionists, 
anarchists  do  not  affect  the  social  status  very 
much.  That  which  they  are  able  to  do  of  mis- 
chief does  not  often  justify  the  alarm  made  about 
them.  It  is  not  possible  for  anybody  to  radically 
change  the  way  things  hang  together,  socially  or 
economically.  The  social  order  as  an  evolution  is 
biologic.  Brilliant  and  erratic  and  well-intentioned 
visionaries  flash  in  and  flash  out,  and  the  old 
order  remaineth.  The  life  of  human  society,  on 
the  whole,  verifies  itself  along  a  line  of  associative 
experiences  which  must  correspond  to  the  unal- 
terable nature  of  the  human  spirit  itself.  Human 
nature  can  be  depended  on  to  hold  the  even  tenor 
of  its  way  in  the  face  of  all  proposals  to  bring  out, 
like  Jonah's  gourd,  a  new  thing  in  a  night.  New 
social  or  economic  principles  do  not  appear  as 
inventions.  People  first  see  the  intimation,  then 
224 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

they  see  the  plain  action  of  a  new  feature  of  the 
social  administration;  then  they  get  about  it  to 
sharp-cut  its  edges  and  universalize  it  by  erecting 
it  into  law. 

The  Authority  of  Law. 

The  new  elements  in  human  society  are  life 
phases.  And  because  they  are  so,  they  do  not 
brook  any  rude  handling.  Those  who  see  social 
ills,  and  mix  panaceas  to  cure  everything  at  once, 
are  visionaries.  They  do  not  have  a  true  con- 
ception of  what  the  social  order  is.  Even  the  in- 
dustrial world  has  not  been  put  together  mechan- 
ically, and  it  can  not  be  structurally  mended. 
Social  law  is  not  a  human  product  by  any  concert 
of  understandings.  The  law  first  discovers  itself 
by  what  it  does.  It  often  holds  things  together 
while  the  subjects  of  it  wrangle  about  it.  In  a 
free  country  the  majorities  rule,  as  they  ought; 
but  they  do  not  make  law.  They  arrogate  the 
right  to  say  what  it  is,  and  they  are  occasionally 
mistaken.  The  legislative  codes  are  burdened  with 
many  misfit  statutes.  Their  administration  does 
not  yield  the  highest  degree  of  justice.  Real 
law  can  not  be  unmade  or  set  aside.  It  may  be 
ignored  or  disobeyed.  It  may  be  resisted  till  the 
f  15  225 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

heart  is  sick,  but  it  does  not  break  down.  The 
law  is  never  inherently  weak.  The  lifted  arm  of 
revolt  gets  broken  sooner  or  later. 

The  supremacy  of  natural  law  does  not  center 
in  Congresses  or  Parliaments.  A  law-making  body 
is  really  a  political  laboratory  of  research.  Those 
fit  to  legislate  are  those  who  hear  the  sound  of  a 
going  in  the  mulberry  trees.  Obedience  to  actual 
law  is  peace  and  prosperity.  And  no  escape  has 
ever  been  known  from  the  retribution  which  writes 
itself  legibly  on  the  other  side.  Gravitation  does 
not  reverse  itself  when  we  leap  over  a  precipice. 
Then  shall  we  nurse  a  deadly  social  virus  and 
expect  immunity?  Moral  issues  are  not  settled  by 
a  show  of  hands. 

The  Ten  Commandments  did  not  come  into 
existence  at  Sinai.  They  were  formulated — set 
into  language — there.  Under  dramatic  conditions, 
Moses  wrote  a  brief  in  casuistry — he  made  a  vest- 
pocket  edition  of  a  code  which  has  shown  itself 
broad  enough  to  include  all  of  man's  spiritual 
impulses.  That  record  remains  to  this  day  the 
mggedest,  mightiest  declaration  of  the  ages.  The 
things  embodied  in  it  are  essential  to  the  orderly 
administration  of  this  planet.  They  are  not  human 
first,  but  cosmic;  and  no  deceit  of  observation  or 
226 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

subterfuge  will  ever  be  able  to  set  them  aside.  We 
may  knock  against  the  bars,  we  may  fret  and 
surge  as  we  please,  we  may  tear  OUT  flesh  and 
waste  our  strength — resistance  is  invariably  dis- 
aster. Defiant  and  disobedient  generations  have 
been  smitten,  one  after  another,  by  an  outraged 
moral  law.  The  very  ground  of  great  geographies 
has,  time  and  again,  been  swept  so  clean  of  human 
beings  that  the  chastened  remnant  has  been  glad 
to  obey  when  a  new  day  and  a  new  life  begins. 
The  most  fearful  of  all  social  insanities  is  that 
form  of  it  which  has  no  respect  for  or  pays  no 
attention  to  a  cosmic  law. 

That  law  is  patient  and  slow-moving,  but  it 
secures  the  settled  human  destinations  in  history 
by  putting  out  of  action  the  opposition.  That 
may  mean  the  overthrow  of  institutions,  the  de- 
feat of  governments,  the  burial  of  civilizations. 
The  supermovement  does  not  mean  a  smooth  sea 
always.  It  does  mean  that  the  human  capacity 
and  will,  personally  acting,  or  collectively,  are 
both  keyed  to  a  supremacy  of  control  in  such  a 
way  that  nothing  which  the  race  is,  or  is  to  be- 
come finally,  can  be  invalidated  by  any  un- 
toward event  in  history  or  by  the  resistant  spirit 
of  individuals.  Progress — stages  of  growth — as 
*  227 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

well  as  reversals,  are  included  in  the  inviolable 
supermovement.  We  may  not  know  what  the 
end  of  history  is,  but  we  have  discovered  the 
steady-going  resistlessness  of  its  way.  We  are  in 
the  grasp  of  the  outstanding  concurrences,  and  we 
are  held  by  them  in  such  a  way  that  the  bare 
fact  in  itself  threatens  to  bury  us  for  our  insig- 
nificance. But  the  issue  with  philosophy  is  not 
quite  so  serious  at  this  point. 

Are  these  outer  determinations  good  for  man? 
Have  life's  conditions  improved?  Is  the  way  of 
history  an  ascent?  Has  the  intellect  made  a 
larger  place  for  itself?  Have  the  humanities  and 
the  nobler  virtues  held  their  own? 

Survivals. 

Far  from  the  other  side  of  his  written  records 
this  human  has  come.  He  was  a  tribal  savage, 
with  his  animal  instincts  predominant.  He  was  a 
low  creature — aimless  and  cruel.  Through  all  that 
prehistoric  period  he  must  have  been  the  subject 
of  some  masterful  life  principle  which  brought 
him,  finally,  to  where  he  became  a  conscious 
helper  of,  and  by  which  he  has  made  the  ascent, 
to  where  he  is  to-day.  He  is  not  yet  fully  on  his 
feet,  but  he  has  scored  an  advance.  He  has  gone 
228 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

up  and  not  down.  The  supremacy  of  the  upward 
tendencies  premits  him  now  to  go  their  way  with 
confidence,  though  they  do  not  shield  him  from 
casualties.  He  may  find  repose  in  the  masterful 
scheme  which  bears  him  onward. 

Progress  has  been  defined  as  that  which  is 
left  over  after  social  successes  and  reverses  have 
been  balanced.  It  is  a  remainder — a  residue — 
often  very  small.  There  are  times  with  communi- 
ties, and  with  nations,  when  about  everything  ap- 
pears to  be  turning  from  bad  to  worse — when 
social  ideals  are  in  eclipse,  when  the  usual  safe- 
guards of  society  are  not  able  to  execute  them- 
selves, when  crime  is  rampant  in  public  and 
private  places,  when  even  that  old  stay  of  com- 
munities, hearthstone  morality,  is  not  good  form; 
when  the  serious-minded  have  come  to  wonder  if 
decay  has  not  fallen  on  human  institutions.  Such 
social  and  political  situations  have  often  looked 
like  finalities.  But  there  are  no  finalities.  Re- 
newals always  follow  the  crises  times.  Small  signs 
of  betterment  at  first  appear,  then  new  values 
begin  to  work  themselves  loose  from  frayed  and 
worn-out  forms;  and  it  is  soon  noted  that  the 
best  things  of  the  dead  time  seem  to  have  re- 
mained over  for  the  very  intent  to  be  put  into 
229 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  melting  pot.  Gold,  ivory,  gems  get  sepa- 
rated from  the  dross  of  things,  and  they  are  di- 
rectly given  a  better  setting  than  they  had  before. 
The  air  clears  after  a  storm.  Moral  and  political 
and  religious  values  show  themselves  able  to  get 
through  a  conflict.  The  world's  pestilences  and 
famines  and  conflagrations  are  not  without  their 
survivals.  It  has  been  supposed  that  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Alexandrian  Library  threw  the  world 
irretrievably  backwards.  But  any  library  accumu- 
lation is  only  secretarial.  The  virile  life — the  men- 
tal activity — the  culture  which  produced  such  a 
repository,  could  not  be  nailed  fast  to  any  record 
of  itself.  A  bonfire  could  not  be  made  of  the 
achievements  of  the  Alexandrian  age.  The  real 
worth  of  such  a  period  could  not  be  put  out  of 
the  stream  of  history.  The  nature  of  man's  actual 
world  will  not  allow  the  radical  advances  of  the 
race  to  be  lost.  Things  of  great  worth  appear  to 
get  out  of  view  for  a  time,  like  germs  going  down 
into  the  soil,  out  of  sight,  to  come  up  later  in  new 
dress  and  vigor  of  life.  There  is  no  more  waste 
in  history  than  in  physics.  Human  beings  can  not 
have  trouble  so  great  as  to  put  the  course  of 
history  permanently  out  of  its  way.  The  law  of 
the  human  conservations  has  its  centers  of  draft  so 
230 


THE  SUPERMOVEMENT. 

far  above  the  heads  of  men  that  they  can  not 
tip-toe  and  touch  it.  Any  confusion  at  any  time 
may  rationally  be  accounted  an  unresolved  strug- 
gle, even  if  the  events  in  it  do  not  get  to  the  end 
of  their  action  in  the  period  of  a  brief  lifetime. 
The  general  movements  of  the  world  are  so  intri- 
cate and  involved — they  are  made  up  of  so  many 
elements  and  affect  so  many  and  diverse  peoples — 
that  a  single  mind,  however  capable,  only  grasps 
a  few  of  their  massed  consequences,  and  then  only 
for  a  moment;  and  it  is  not  able,  therefore,  to  put 
on  them  any  appropriate  value.  But  we  do  come 
to  know  a  progress  which  is  inherent  and  an  ad- 
versity which  is  not  remediless. 


231 


CHAPTER  XI. 
RELIGION   AND   THE    COMMUNAL   LIFE. 

The  Overlap  of  Life  Units. 

THE  little  plumularia  of  many  seashores  is 
composed  of  a  mass  of  tiny  structures,  each  hav- 
ing a  life  of  its  own  and  at  the  same  time  perform- 
ing a  functional  part  in  the  life  of  the  larger  or- 
ganism, which  is  a  colonial  unit. 

The  compound  coral  is  also  an  assemblage  of 
organic  units.  It  is  a  life  within  a  life  showing 
very  complete  and  complicated  mutual  depend- 
encies. 

The  millions  of  cells  of  the  human  body  are 
classified.  Over  and  above  the  fact  of  cell  in- 
dividuality, the  cells  are  known  to  have  a  struc- 
tural and  functional  belonging.  One  set  con- 
structs the  bony  framework,  another  the  con- 
nective tissues,  another  undertakes  the  enormous 
work  of  nutrition;  but  hi  no  moment  of  that  de- 
tailed division  of  labor  is  there  a  forgetfulness  of 
their  vital  co-ordinations  with  the  larger  unit 
to  which  they  belong.  The  red  corpuscles  have 
232 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

in  view  the  life  of  the  body — they  build  all  the 
structures.  The  white  corpuscles  fight  disease. 
They  throw  themselves  against  an  enemy  with 
utter  abandon — one  against  a  thousand.  It  is 
their  hilarious  business  to  die  for  the  life  of  the 
body.  When  a  fever  rages  the  lucocytes  are 
waging  war.  Only  in  a  mathetic  sense,  therefore, 
can  it  be  said  that  the  living  body  is  the  sum  of 
its  living  cells.  The  body  is  a  distinct  life  unit 
composed  of  unicellular  life  units.  The  biological 
situation  may  be  described  as  an  overlap  of  life 
units.  Nothing  is  separate,  nothing  apart,  noth- 
ing segregated.  Life  forms  are  wrapped  about 
each  other — the  smaller  transfused  through  the 
larger  everywhere. 

This  is  one  of  the  first  lessons  to  be  learned 
in  biology,  and  the  sociologist  never  makes  any 
headway  until  he  becomes  familiar  with  it.  Indi- 
viduals and  families  are  interfused  into  that  dis- 
tinct organism  we  call  the  state;  and  in  the  same 
way  that  bees  are  put  together  to  constitute  the 
hive.  The  hive  instinct  endows  each  insect  with 
the  best  it  knows  of  itself.  A  single  bee  gives  it- 
self, without  reserve,  to  the  hive,  without  knowl- 
edge, perhaps,  that  such  a  giving  is  the  supremest 
expression  of  self-preservation. 
233 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  New  Testament  law  of  human  service  is 
this  same  law  brought  up  into  the  domain  of  man's 
life,  and  not  a  new  thing.  "He  that  loveth  his 
life  shall  lose  it"  states  broadly  a  great  natural 
law,  which  did  not  drop  down  out  of  the  sky,  but 
came  up  out  of  the  ground. 

The  self-seeking  life  is  narrow  and  self-de- 
structive. Our  richest  personal  findings  are  in 
our  outgivings  of  effort  for  others.  We  are  a 
part — an  integral  part — of  the  larger  life  of  the 
family  and  society.  We  are  fitted  in  as  the  bee 
is  fitted  in.  We  can  think  of  a  bee  with  the  crass 
capacity  to  fly  out  from  the  hive  and  never  re- 
turn. It  would  then  take  to  itself  all  the  sweet 
of  every  flower  and  have  nothing  to  carry  back 
to  the  hive.  What  glorious  freedom — and  what 
insanity  and  suicide  of  life!  The  bee,  however, 
has  no  will  to  execute  such  a  feat. 

Refusal  to  accept  associative  obligations  is 
revolt  against  a  cosmic  law.  Its  supposed  ad- 
vantages are  a  deceit — it  is  a  blundering  to  a  fall. 
The  larger  outside  values  to  the  individual  are 
his  social  co-ordinations.  "For  no  man  liveth 
to  himself,  no  man  dieth  to  himself."  That  state- 
ment can  be  verified  as  true  from  an  examination 
of  any  physical  aspect  of  creation. 
234 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

Socialisms. 

The  communal  life  is  the  basal  life  anywhere. 
Individualism  is  not  an  increasing  separateness — 
it  is  an  increasing  identity  with  community  ad- 
vantages. It  is  the  capacity  to  make  use  of  the 
world's  accumulations. 

The  last  fifty  years  has  brought  to  the  notice 
of  scholars  a  decided  uprising  of  discontent  with 
those  phases  of  the  social  order  which  have  ex- 
pressed themselves  on  a  selfish  or  individual  basis; 
which  have  undervalued  collective  advantages  and 
overvalued  individual  rights;  which  have  so  mag- 
nified individual  rights  as  to  defeat  individual  hap- 
piness. There  has  been  a  growing  interest  in  the 
communal  advantage,  as  a  survival,  for  the  reason 
that  it  makes  itself  an  offering  to  each  individual 
born  into  it.  As  the  social  complexes  approach 
perfection,  personal  privileges  and  gifts  multiply 
geometrically.  When  it  comes  to  pass  that  gas 
and  water  and  coal  and  pavements  and  roadways 
and  telephones  and  free  mail  delivery  and  the 
parcels  post  and  schools  and  churches  and  li- 
braries and  art  museums  and  public  parks  can 
be  enjoyed  by  all,  at  the  rates  which  the  poor  can 
afford,  then  the  poor  are  as  rich  as  the  rich  in  these 
things. 

235 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  richer  the  community  in  social  advan- 
tages, the  richer  the  entire  citizenship  in  an  equality 
of  privilege.  The  real  need  of  large  personal  ac- 
cumulation of  wealth  becomes  less  as  social  bene- 
fits increase.  The  community  life  now,  as  we 
understand  its  working  among  the  most  ad- 
vanced peoples,  has  in  it  the  potentials  of  un- 
precedented bestowments  on  the  whole  mass 
alike;  and  social  growth,  in  that  direction,  ought 
certainly  to  weaken  the  motive  towards  personal 
gain,  since  the  richest  things  for  which  money 
stands  may  be  secured  for  all,  on  equal  terms. 

More  and  more  does  it  come  to  pass  that  the 
one  man  is  a  molecular  part  of  the  larger  body — 
he  is  the  group  in  miniature,  and  his  larger  bene- 
fits are  group  offerings.  A  civilized  and  cultured 
man,  stark  naked,  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  and 
doomed  to  stay  there,  has  no  show  for  the  larger 
life.  We  are  all  born  in  debt  to  communal  aggre- 
gates so  great  that  we  shall  never  be  able  to  meet 
value  with  value.  About  the  best  we  can  do  now 
is  to  leave  OUT  inheritance  intact,  with  an  added 
contribution  by  the  time  we  go  hence.  The 
strength  of  the  modern  socialistic  propaganda  lies 
in  these  particular  facts  and  tendencies.  Socialism, 
until  now,  has  been  hindered  by  radical  and  un- 
236 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

reasonable  features.  It  has  attracted  those  who 
desire  to  reap  where  they  have  not  sown.  It 
has  had  violent  and  unjustifiable  expressions.  Its 
first  theories  were  largely  revolutionary  and  de- 
structive. It  proposed  to  raze  the  ground  and 
make  a  clean  place  on  which  to  build  a  social 
paradise.  And  the  whole  spirit  of  it  has  not  yet 
become  unified.  Its  thought  leaders  do  not  see 
eye  to  eye.  But  in  the  bedlam  of  sounds  are 
some  voices  of  the  new  age.  Not  in  its  radical- 
isms, not  in  its  previsions  of  an  ideal  society,  but 
in  its  ability  to  hear  the  cry  of  the  oppressed  and 
to  pull  strongest  on  the  downmost  man.  It  is  this 
which  makes  it  attractive  to  many  minds.  The 
human  heart  responds  to  that  appeal  wherever 
the  teachings  of  the  Christ  have  gone.  The  move- 
ment is  not  a  backward  one.  Any  theory  which 
proposes  to  lift  the  masses  will  now  find  advo- 
cates. Its  birthplace  and  home  is  among  ad- 
vanced peoples  who  are  capable  of  being  moved 
by  the  kindlier  feelings  which,  in  Germany  the 
other  day,  prompted  one  hundred  thousand  men 
to  say,  "Let  us  see  if  we  can  not  come  to  a  better 
understanding  with  England?" 

Any  peaceable  propaganda  has  a  right  to  it- 
self.    In  a  free  country  no  danger  inheres  in  the 
237 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

constructive  theories  of  those  who  propose  to  abide 
their  day  and  obey  the  law.  Social  advances,  of 
course,  are  always  made  at  the  expense  of  greater 
or  less  friction  with  vested  interests.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  free  investigation  and  test  will  grad- 
ually purge  advanced  theories  of  their  vagaries. 
The  attrition  of  progress  will  leave  its  residue  of 
values,  and  we  may  not  know  what  these  are 
until  we  reach  them. 

But  this  one  thing  is  sure.  Every  student  of 
the  practical  life  of  man  sees  a  tendency  in  the 
modern  world  to  increase  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment and  to  illeviate  the  distress  of  the  submerged 
classes.  And  in  the  time  ahead  it  is  inevitable, 
with  the  increase  of  populations,  which  means  an 
approach  to  the  limits  of  subsistence  and  an  in- 
crease of  the  hazard  of  getting  on  in  the  world, 
that  government  must  multiply  advantages  for 
the  common  man.  The  order  of  society  must 
receive  constant  improvement  in  the  direction  of  a 
social  ethic  which  begins  with  the  first  man  and 
does  not  stop  until  the  last  man  is  reached.  Poli- 
ticians, statesmen,  scholars  have  done  so  little 
for  the  last  man  that  we  may  justly  suspect  that 
the  controlling  institutions  of  men,  until  this  time, 
238 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

have  suffered  misdirection  by  some  fatuity  of  the 
reason. 

Bee  hives  and  ant  hills  have  in  them  the  ele- 
ments of  associative  control  more  perfect  than 
any  human  government  on  earth.  They  have 
communal  property,  but  not  in  a  sense  which 
contradicts  personal  holdings  among  men.  The 
communal  life  is  there.  If  the  formal  reason  is 
to  take  the  place  of  that,  reason  has  boggled  its 
business,  because  it  has  produced  the  "last  man." 
There  are  no  last  ants  in  the  hill  or  last  bees  in 
the  hive. 

Group  Action. 

Benjamin  Kidd,  in  his  "Social  Evolution,"  is 
sure  that  animals  do  not  act  in  concert.  But  most 
birds,  in  their  migrations,  go  in  flocks.  They  feed 
together,  delightedly — they  fight  together.  The 
gregarious  animal  species  are  more  prosperous. 
Let  a  bunch  of  thrifty  shoats  become  aroused 
to  the  sense  of  danger — as  of  a  dog  rushing  among 
them — and  they  throw  themselves  into  line,  each 
head  against  the  shoulder  of  the  one  next  in  front, 
each  mouth  open,  showing  vicious  tusks;  the 
husky  nerve-racking  banter  of  battle  in  each 
239 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

throat,  and  not  a  single  shoat  out  of  line — they 
move  in  a  swift-closing  circle  about  the  enemy 
and,  with  a  resistless  rage,  they  usually  put  him 
to  flight. 

A  few  students  yet  incline  to  refer  all  human 
achievements  to  their  supposed  centers  and  orig- 
inations in  the  individual.  Whatever  comes  to 
pass  must  be  interpreted  in  the  terms  of  personal 
action.  Each  event  must  go  down  to  the  credit 
or  discredit  of  somebody.  But  if  a  million  people 
have  to  do  with  an  event,  and  are  the  subjects  of 
it,  how  is  it  possible  to  locate  a  personal  cause? 
With  the  growth  of  industrialisms,  the  initiative 
of  the  individual  tends  to  lose  out.  The  causes  of 
social  change  are  to  be  sought  more  and  more  in 
the  spontaneities  of  the  group.  Often  we  do  not 
know  where  nor  how  social  sentiment  masses 
itself. 

The  Fraternity  Phase  of  Industry. 

The  latest  kind  of  legislative  work  is  to  formu- 
late the  law  of  the  group.  The  effort  is  being 
made,  with  the  private  citizen  in  view,  not  only 
to  give  him  his  rights  and  equal  opportunities, 
but  to  define  his  status  in  the  class  to  which  he 
may  belong.  The  old  struggle  of  the  individual 
£40 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

for  a  place  and  bread  and  a  fair  chance  is  slowly 
being  taken  over  into  the  bodies  which  represent 
a  group  fellowship  of  understandings.  Unhin- 
dered personal  freedom,  in  a  crowded  industrial 
state,  is  a  fiction  of  democracy.  The  single  man 
is  becoming  less  and  less  a  free  force.  Whether  or 
not  the  tendency  is  good  for  him  is  aside  from 
the  fact.  In  a  blunt  way  he  refuses  longer  to  hug 
a  term  which  has  in  it  a  deceit  and  a  treachery. 
He  sees  the  uselessness  of  holding  to  an  idea  which 
is  no  more  than  a  phantom.  Why  say  to  the 
workman,  "There  is  room  at  the  top,"  when  he 
has  no  more  chance  of  reaching  the  top  than  he 
has  of  taking  a  trip  to  the  moon — and  when  to 
reach  the  top  would  not  increase  his  happiness. 
The  average  workman  wishes  to  remain  in  his 
own  state  and  live  his  life  among  his  fellows,  and 
to  find  what  success  is  and  content  in  the  line  of 
his  preferences  and  aptitudes.  And  rather  than 
to  climb  to  the  top,  which  is  an  everlasting  out- 
climbing  from  where  he  is  into  a  strange  place, 
more  and  more  he  prefers  to  refer  himself,  his 
opinions,  his  actions,  his  place,  his  work,  his  wage 
to  the  class  with  which  he  is  industrially  related. 
The  fraternity  phase,  which,  at  bottom,  is  a 

feature    of    the    evolution    of   the    religious    life, 
16  241 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

has  evidently  come  into  the  industrial  world  to 
stay. 

When  the  larger  business  concerns  throw  work- 
men together  in  classes,  and  when  competition  is 
strong,  collective  understandings  become  neces- 
sary. The  group  may  be  industrial  or  fraternal 
or  social  or  scientific  or  artistic  or  religious — the 
thing  to  be  noted  is,  the  age  is  running  in  con- 
centrics.  The  situation  is  one  which  attends 
progress,  and  it  is  not  always  free  from  strife.  The 
old-time  competition,  which  was  first  between 
individuals,  and  which  was  supposed  to  be  the 
life  of  trade,  has  been  the  death  of  the  traders. 
Large  business  concerns  of  the  same  kind  now 
save  themselves  from  mutual  losses  by  quickly 
coming  to  the  group  understandings. 

In  this  turbulent  social  sea  the  individual  is 
such  a  midget — he  is  too  small  for  the  social 
complexes  to  take  him  in.  He  must  become  iden- 
tified with  the  groups.  If  they  leave  him  out,  he 
is  in  constant  danger  of  sinking  into  helplessness 
and  despair.  His  chances  to  get  along  in  the  world 
get  away  from  him,  and  he  is  undone.  Alarmed 
by  the  risks  of  living,  he  seeks  mutual  protection 
in  the  mutual  fealties  of  the  organization.  He 
turns  a  part  of  his  liberty  over  into  it.  He  finds 
242 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

there,  with  those  of  his  guild,  companionship, 
protection,  leadership.  He  finds  a  sphere  to  his 
liking,  and  one  that  does  not  overtax  his  powers. 
The  advantage  is  a  very  clear  one  to  him,  and  it 
will  remain  if  the  group  expressions  are  held  to 
their  legitimate  functions. 

The  business  world  is  now  well  acquainted  with 
this  kind  of  collective  intelligence.  Massed  bodies 
have  a  distinct  place  in  the  industries.  Success- 
ful employers  have  learned  to  deal  successfully 
with  them.  Laborers  have  come  to  an  under- 
standing of  their  rights  and  they  no  longer  leave 
one  another  to  fight  a  solitary  warfare  for  a  just 
wage.  They  line  up  and  act  in  concert.  A  com- 
mittee will  make  a  wage  scale  and  a  term  contract 
with  employers  for  thousands  of  men.  Employers 
say  this  is  often  better  for  all  concerned.  The 
industrial  groups  now  perform  the  most  com- 
plicated functions  in  the  adjustment  of  labor  to 
the  corporate  employment  of  it. 

Modern  industrial  conditions  are  not  ideal,  but 
they  are  an  advance  over  anything  the  world  has 
known.  They  have  come  about  under  a  truer 
estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  personal  man.  The 
human  life  is  above  business  success,  above  profits, 
or  any  material  thing.  The  workman  to-day  is 
243 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

not  unfair  in  his  request  for  a  chance  to  live 
decently — to  have  a  home,  to  have  time  enough 
away  from  the  treadmill  of  toil  to  take  a  breath- 
ing spell,  to  cherish  his  wife  and  play  with  his 
children,  and  to  cultivate  the  instincts  of  friend- 
ship and  sociability. 

Fraternity. 

The  spirit  and  methods  of  the  labor  guilds  have 
not  always  been  commendable.  Labor  has  often 
taken  positions  which  were  untenable  and  unfair 
to  outside  workmen  and  unfair  to  society.  Their 
leaders  have  been,  at  times,  unwise.  Boycotts 
and  intimidations  and  destructions  of  property 
and  life  make  a  long  and  regretful  list.  These 
are  the  insanities  of  the  movement.  They  de- 
serve to  have  put  against  them  the  utmost  re- 
pressive measures.  Methods  which  outrage  the 
moral  sense  of  people  hinders  the  cause  of  labor, 
even  where  it  has  a  just  complaint.  But  let  the 
whole  of  that  be  admitted  and  regretted,  and  let 
good  citizenship  exercise  its  right  to  put  stout 
resistance  against  the  mistaken  views  of  laborers, 
as  well  as  against  their  clannishness  and  narrow- 
ness; nevertheless,  the  strength  of  the  whole  move- 
ment is  the  brotherhood  idea. 
244 


RELIGION  AND  THE  COMMUNAL  LIFE. 

Strong  brothers  in  the  labor  world  have  builded 
a  mighty  democracy.  The  fraternal  spirit  is  hav- 
ing a  great  growth  among  the  wage  earners,  and 
fraternity,  wherever  found,  is  one  of  the  permanent 
elements  of  religion. 


245 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE. 

The  Growing  Capacity. 

THE  fact  of  a  human  religious  instinct  is  es- 
tablished beyond  dispute,  and  needs  no  extended 
proof  in  this  discussion.  The  desire  to  know, 
the  social  impulse,  the  sex  instinct,  and  the  intu- 
ition of  a  superior  power  are  the  four  ineradicable 
elements  of  human  nature.  Religion  is  not  a  pro- 
jection of  anything  into  life.  It  is  the  conscious 
action  of  powers  which  have  been  creatively  pro- 
vided. The  human  spirit  comes  into  existence 
with  that  distinct  bent.  It  is  a  birth  capacity 
and  an  inheritance  vastly  greater  than  we  yet  know. 
Religious  teaching  everywhere  dependably  as- 
sumes its  existence.  The  whole  problem  consists 
in  calling  it  out  and  giving  it  direction  in  the 
light  of  all  knowledge.  The  outer  correspondences 
of  the  world  are  the  channels  along  which  the 
inward  capacity  runs,  to  leap  at  last  into  the 
flame  and  afflatus  of  true  devotion.  The  younger 
Booth  of  the  Salvation  Army  expresses  the  deep 
£46 


THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE. 

philosophy  of  that  remarkable  propaganda  when 
he  says,  "The  spark  of  the  divine  lies  hidden  and 
smoldering  in  the  soul  of  the  wastrel."  And  it  is 
also  of  profound  cosmic  significance  that  the  man 
"down  and  out"  is  captured  with  kettle-drum 
and  fife.  Thrown  under  and  despoiled,  he  yet 
has  an  ear  for  that  appeal.  When  he  follows  it 
down  the  street  he  does  not  go  far,  but  he  is  on 
his  way  out.  One  of  the  curses  of  religion  is  the 
aristocracy  of  its  methods. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  the  foundations  of 
character  are  laid  in  the  reactions  of  the  human 
spirit  with  an  intelligent,  natural  world.  And 
that  excludes  nothing.  All  experiences  have  the 
builder's  stamp.  They  are  not  crass  sensations. 
Mysteriously,  in  all  sounds  and  voices  and  colors 
and  days  and  seasons  the  divine  is  enmeshed. 
The  revealing  process  starts  in  infancy  and  follows 
the  growing  intellect.  Some  materialization  all 
the  time  leads  the  way.  The  self-revelation  of 
God  is  not  a  down-letting — it  is  an  uplifting.  God 
is  not  a  prince  on  a  raised  platform.  God  is  in 
everything,  always  a  satisfying  response  to  the 
human  capacity.  The  idea  of  the  divine,  even 
among  advanced  peoples,  is  a  growing  composite. 

A  star,  to  a  child,  is  a  bright  speck  in  the  sky. 
247 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  child  may  know  more  about  the  stars  as  it 
grows.  The  stars  are  the  revealing  potentials — 
rich  with  bottomless  truth.  The  limitations  of 
the  starting  point,  with  a  child,  are  negligible,  if 
it  is  a  grower.  What  God  is  to  us  we  know.  That 
knowledge  is  real,  practical,  livable.  What  God 
is — all  in  all — is  absolutely  inscrutable. 

The  Primitive  Man. 

Self-evidently  the  primitive-minded  man  could 
only  have  primitive  notions  about  anything.  The 
student  of  the  early  records  of  the  race  must  take 
large  account  of  childish  fears  and  superstitions. 
The  low  man,  who  is  a  savage,  is  disturbed  by 
strange  emotions — mental  vagaries,  dreams,  ghosts, 
invisible  enemies,  spirits  of  ancestors,  storms, 
earthquakes,  cyclones,  scourges  of  pestilent  dis- 
eases; for  he  believes  these  have  in  them  a  threat 
to  destroy  him.  He  has  also  aspirations  and 
yearnings  and  outreachings  which  he  does  not 
understand.  He  has  a  vague  feeling  of  dependence 
on  a  superior  power  which  perplexes  and  distresses 
him.  Strange  noises  startle  him;  he  creates  an- 
other world  out  of  dreamland;  he  hangs  up  a 
charm  in  his  hut;  he  carves  an  image  on  the  rocks; 
he  seeks  an  open  place  in  the  woods  and  bows  down 
248 


THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE. 

when  the  sun  rises — that  is,  he  comes  out  a  wor- 
shiper. A  mole  may  take  to  the  ground  and  a 
fish  to  the  sea;  but  man  moves  out  toward  the 
mystery  which  surrounds  him. 

He  has  a  spontaneous,  an  unreflecting  grip  on 
a  somewhat  in  nature  like  himself.  His  food 
comes  from  the  soil.  Water  quenches  his  thirst. 
The  seasons  come  and  go  with  regularity,  and  to 
his  advantage.  He  learns  to  know  certain  things 
as  the  bird  knows  the  nesting  time  and  the  time 
of  migration  north  or  south.  The  violent  natural 
forces  may  awaken  in  him  reverence — or  terror; 
and  he  may  cry  out,  as  the  animals  cry  in  fright 
or  pain;  but  above  the  animal  a  dim  sense  of  the 
divine  possesses  him.  Unconsciously  the  deeps 
of  his  inmost  being  answer  to  the  deeps  of  the 
world  of  nature,  and  the  truth  of  the  invisible 
breaks  in  on  him  little  by  little.  He  can  not 
extricate  himself.  He  can  not  get  above  or  below 
things.  He  must  persist  in  things  and  meet  the 
facts  of  experience.  He  takes  the  substance  and 
the  form  together,  in  an  unreflecting  way.  His 
formal  reason  is  not  in  action.  His  spirit  nature 
responds  to  a  spirit  world.  The  kinship  is  generic. 
His  birthright  inheritances  determine  for  him  a 
human  destination  and  a  deathless  interest  in 
249 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  invisible  world.  All  the  elements  of  experience 
which  beat  down  on  him  from  without  are  wrought 
into  a  definite  alignment  of  tendencies  in  harmony 
with  his  nature,  just  as  the  nutritive  substances 
which  reach  his  body  are  assimilated  in  the  build- 
ing of  the  physical  organism.  The  savage  does  not 
know  how  he  is  related  to  either  the  pleasures  or 
the  distresses  of  his  lif e,  and  he  is  therefore  likely 
to  be  mastered  more  by  his  fears  than  his  confi- 
dences. If  the  religious  impulsions  were  founded 
originally  in  fear,  they  are  none  the  less  legitimate 
and  rational.  A  baby's  fright  at  a  strange  noise 
is  not  a  weakness,  and  it  is  not  irrational.  When 
the  child  mind  among  the  races  remains  a  wor- 
shiper— when  that  mind,  through  knowledge, 
emerges  into  culture  and  civilization,  and  the 
impulse  to  worship  yet  remains — the  fact  itself  is 
proof  positive  of  the  validity  of  religious  ideas. 

The  Universe  Appears. 

We  are  not  able  to  see  any  justifiable  disap- 
pointment in  religion  as  an  evolution.  If  what 
the  world  now  knows  of  God  and  duty  has  its 
rootings  in  the  soil  of  the  beginnings  of  the  human 
life,  do  we  not  have  in  that  a  secure  thought 
basis  for  religion?  Is  it  not  a  very  sturdy  ground- 
250 


THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE. 

ing  for  the  faiths  of  men?  That  knowledge  of  the 
divine  which  is  inlaid  with  experience  is  less  likely 
to  be  mixed  with  error  than  any  supposed  informa- 
tion which  comes  instantly  out  of  the  sky,  and 
which  the  modern  mind  at  least  is  inclined  to 
dodge,  as  it  would  a  meteoric  stone.  The  per- 
manent religious  values  of  the  world  are  not  dis- 
paraged when  their  root  ideas  are  found  among 
backward  peoples,  who  do  not  grasp  the  concep- 
tion of  a  beneficence  worthy  of  worship,  or  who 
are  strangers  to  the  finer  ethical  distinctions  of 
the  advanced  races. 

Nature  manifests  to  the  low  man  an  inscrut- 
able power,  and  he  goes  about  to  get  some  prac- 
tical understanding  of  it — he  becomes  a  perplexed 
questioner  of  his  surroundings — as  the  animals 
do;  and  above  them  he  undertakes  to  know 
whether  things  are  cruel  or  good — a  friend  or  an 
enemy.  "As  soon  as  a  man  becomes  conscious 
of  himself,  as  soon  as  he  perceives  himself  as 
distinct  from  the  persons  and  things  about  him, 
he  at  the  same  time  becomes  conscious  of  a  higher 
self — a  higher  power — without  which  he  feels  that 
neither  he  nor  anything  else  would  have  any  life 
or  reality."  (Muller.) 

Man's  estimates  of  life's  values  approach  ab- 
251 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

soluteness  as  he  believes  he  approaches  the  ul- 
timate reality;  and  the  ultimate  reality  always 
engages  his  religious  feelings.  Value  in  the  human 
mind  is  so  related  to  reality,  and  reality  to  wor- 
ship, that  the  religious  question  has  always  been 
very  tense  and  vital.  It  is  a  breeder  of  fanatics 
and  flagellants  and  self-torturing  ascetics  and 
masterful  hotheads  who  do  the  world  damage. 
The  deeps  of  the  human  spirit  are  always  stirred 
when  it  approaches  what  it  feels  to  be  the  last 
things.  Whenever  the  mind  reaches  the  shore 
line  of  an  immensity,  beyond  which  it  can  not 
go,  both  the  solemnity  of  its  own  limitations  and 
the  silences  of  a  great  mystery  bend  it  down  in 
submission  and  expectancy.  And  the  natural  in- 
clination with  the  undeveloped  mind  is  to  per- 
sonate the  power  which  it  does  not  understand. 
An  image  is  the  translation  of  the  invisible  into 
the  self-understanding.  Idolatry  is  the  beginning 
articulation  of  the  mind  of  man  with  the  universe. 
The  worshiper,  at  first  a  low,  unreflecting  suf- 
ferer, looks  out  to  the  end  of  his  vision;  but  in 
any  direction  he  sees  enough  to  dwarf  him.  The 
days  and  the  years  glide  by  in  monotonous  reg- 
ularity— the  sun  rises  and  sets,  and  the  stars  keep 
their  places  at  night;  storm  and  tempest  beat 
252 


THE  DEATHLESS  IMPULSE. 

about  him  and  drive  him  to  shelter;  hunger  gnaws 
at  his  vitals — and  he  finally  goes  from  the  end 
of  his  vision  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Then  his  gen- 
erations follow,  and  a  thousand  years  go  by;  and 
at  last  the  universe  appears. 

The  human  mind,  Lifted  to  a  conception  of 
the  universe,  is  differentiated  instantly.  It  is  the 
crisis  time  of  the  soul.  Consciousness  breaks  in 
to  make  a  creature  of  the  simple  reflexes  a  thinker. 
The  unity  of  creation  soon  appears  to  a  thinker. 
Causation  is  the  background  of  a  thinker's  life. 
He  has,  then,  a  place  to  put  his  findings.  He  has 
the  same  place  to  file  his  mysteries.  He  is  then 
under  the  sway  of  a  new  set  of  tendencies.  He 
has  come  to  his  own.  Monotheism  begins  where 
the  mind  first  apprehends  the  unitary  nature  of 
existence. 

"The  idea  of  God  is  revealed  to  man  in  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  development  of  his  in- 
telligence, and  the  existence  of  a  supreme  reality, 
corresponding  to  and  represented  by  this  idea,  is 
rationally  and  logically  demonstrable,  and  there- 
fore justly  entitled  to  take  rank  as  a  part  of 
our  legitimate,  valid,  and  positive  knowledge." 
(Cocker.) 


253 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  EASTERN  MIND. 
The  Divine  Unity. 

WE  do  not  detect  among  primitive  people  any 
attempt  to  disseminate  by  special  effort,  or  by 
formal  organized  understandings,  the  primary 
ideas  which  they  are  known  to  have  held.  They 
do  not  show  the  missionary  spirit.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  certain  that  at  any  early  time  the  unity  of  the 
divine  nature  was  widely  accepted  by  them, 
especially  by  dwellers  in  the  extreme  East.  A 
thousand  years  before  Christ,  Zoroaster  pro- 
claimed to  the  Persians  the  doctrine  of  a  Supreme 
Being.  India  was  deistic  before  Buddha's  day. 
Babylon  and  Assyria  gave  Asshur  a  first  place 
among  the  gods.  The  germinal  religious  concep- 
tions of  Arabia  were  monotheistic  from  the  earliest 
known  records  of  that  region.  Dr.  Livingstone 
says  of  the  South  African  tribes,  "There  is  no 
necessity  for  beginning  to  tell  the  most  degraded 
of  these  people  of  the  existence  of  God."  The 
Book  of  Job  is  an  interpretation  of  ancient  Oriental 
254 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

thought  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  banks  of 
the  Indus.  The  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  divine 
nature  could  not  have  been  taken  to  such  different 
and  diverse  peoples  through  a  dissemination  of 
the  doctrine.  It  must  have  come  up  indigenously. 
Wherever  the  mind  of  man  was  able  to  break 
through  the  incrustation  of  his  sensations  the  uni- 
tary Cause  appeared. 

The  dogma  of  Mohammed,  "There  is  one 
God,"  was  a  common  belief,  which  he  wrought 
into  a  fanaticism;  and  only  after  it  was  heralded 
by  the  sword  did  its  religious  truth  become  hard- 
ened into  a  vast  political  idea.  Vast  numbers 
of  people  have  since  bowed  to  its  intolerances 
and  despotisms  and  to  its  values.  When  a  modern 
Bedouin  of  the  Sahara  climbs  down  from  his 
camel  and  turns  his  face  towards  Mecca  and 
the  palms  of  his  hands  towards  the  sky,  and  cries 
out,  "Allah  il  Allah,"  he  is  at  that  moment  about 
the  greatest  and  most  uncompromising  religious 
figure  on  the  earth. 

That  type  of  man  might  as  well  be  let  alone 
until  he  can  be  lifted  by  the  acceptance  with  him 
of  whatever  is  true  of  his  beliefs.  The  appeal  of 
Paul  on  Mars'  Hill  was  first  to  the  truths  of  Greek 
philosophy.  The  appeal  of  Mohammed  was  to  a 
*  255 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

religious  consciousness  which  was  substantially  one 
with  the  Hebrew  theocracy.  It  is  so  evidently  a 
truth  of  the  first  instance — it  has  so  taken  hold  of 
the  Moslem  mind,  it  is  so  clear-cut,  so  simple  of 
grasp,  so  bottomlessly  unitary,  so  free  from  de- 
grading images  of  itself,  and  so  completely  has  it 
been  wrought  into  the  life  habits  of  one-third 
the  human  race — that  it  will  not  likely  yield  to 
outer  persuasions.  To  the  Arab  it  is  the  ultimate 
reason.  It  is  an  imperious  radical  among  religious 
ideas.  It  will  never  be  coerced.  It  need  not  be. 
It  must  become  a  base  of  the  broader  religious 
understandings.  The  religions  of  the  world  are 
not  fundamentally  antithetic. 

We  have  come  to  see  a  Christian  ethic  even 
among  ethnic  peoples.  In  the  war  council  of 
Portsmouth,  a  few  years  ago,  Japan,  for  the  sake 
of  peace  and  the  humanities,  being  the  victor, 
yielded  point  after  point,  and  at  the  last  astonished 
Christian  nations  by  her  generosity.  She  set  a 
world  mark  in  the  ethics  of  diplomacy.  The  re- 
ligious instincts  of  the  whole  world  have  in  them 
certain  unitary  tendencies,  growing  out  of  basal 
likenesses,  and  they  bear  with  them  the  meaning 
that  at  last  there  shall  be  no  diverse  religious 
destinations.  We  all  have  the  same  food,  the 
256 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

same  sunshine,  the  same  air,  the  same  senses,  the 
same  aesthetic  inclinations,  the  same  language  en- 
dowments, similar  religious  instincts;  we  swim  in 
the  same  cosmic  sea,  and  we  make  kindred  con- 
tributions to  what  the  race  is  to  be.  God  is  one, 
nature  is  one,  the  human  life  is  one.  Climates, 
geographies,  colors,  traditions,  political  institutions 
— these  are  superficial.  The  misunderstandings 
men  now  have  are  caused  by  lack  of  knowledge, 
and  of  acquaintance  and  the  charity  which  is 
universal.  Resemblances  among  men  are  more 
numerous,  when  we  are  able  to  see  them,  than  the 
occasions  of  an  arrested  fellowship. 

The  Eastern  Man. 

The  Westerner  is  sure  that  his  life  and  insti- 
tutions express,  in  a  better  way,  what  a  man 
ought  to  be  than  the  life  and  civil  affairs  of  the 
Asiatic.  Nevertheless,  the  Occidental  man  has 
been  greatly  enriched  by  the  values  which  have 
come  from  the  region  he  affects  to  discount.  The 
Orient  teemed  with  exalted  human  interests  three 
thousand  years  before  America  was  redeemed 
from  savagery.  The  man  of  the  yellow  races  does 
not  measure  very  well  by  Western  standards.  He 

is  not  so  militant  or  so  material  or  so  aggressive 
17  257 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

or  so  inventive  or  so  masterful  of  the  elements  of 
self-control  socially.  His  provincialisms  fasten 
him  down  and  make  of  him  a  slow-crawling  builder 
worm,  enthroned  in  patience.  The  social  forces 
at  work  on  him  have  done  their  worst  and  have 
dug  a  channel  for  themselves;  so  that  he  obeys 
them  and  not  the  outside  folks.  The  average 
Chinaman  to-day  is  running  around  like  a  pig 
after  his  breakfast  and  taking  no  sort  of  interest 
in  the  remarkable  political  changes  of  his  country. 
So  stolid  is  he  in  the  traditions  of  his  life  that  the 
Chinese  Republic,  just  ahead,  may  be  found  not 
to  exist. 

Inland  Asiatic  peoples  have  had  no  fresh  blood 
infusions  for  thousands  of  years,  and  they  have 
never  swarmed.  They  are  now  huddled  about 
like  ant-hills  in  little  nucleated,  self-controlling 
centers.  The  villages  govern  themselves.  They 
are  self-perpetuative  and  self-recuperative.  They 
hold  together  and  work  out  a  community  destiny 
under  an  unformulated  and  invisible  code  not 
superior  to  that  of  a  colony  of  bees.  The  indi- 
viduals vibrate  in  narrowly-confined  limits.  Life, 
there,  has  more  distress  in  it  than  a  Western  man 
would  tolerate.  Customs  and  caste  have  so  lim- 
ited individual  initiative,  and  set  each  one  into 
258 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

such  a  narrow  place  of  privilege  and  duty,  and 
for  so  long  a  time,  that  each  one's  place  among 
his  fellows  has  become  most  desperately  sacred. 
Population  also  presses  a  disheartened  soil.  The 
seasons  bring  on  an  annual  crisis.  Food  supplies 
are  being  pressed  to  the  last  limit  of  human  sub- 
sistence. We  are  fat  people  living  on  a  virgin 
soil,  and  we  think  we  could  show  China  the  way 
out;  but  we  will  be  able  to  give  more  good  advice 
after  we  have  taken  a  population  of  four  hundred 
to  the  square  mile  and  have  gone  on  with  it  for 
four  thousand  years. 

The  Asiatic  is  the  religious  man  of  the  earth — 
using  that  term  in  its  philosophic  aspects.  He  is 
a  prince  among  those  who  revel  in  introspection. 
He  has  a  keen  perception  of  the  existence  of  an 
invisible  world.  He  has  the  profoundest  kind  of 
insight  into  the  ceaseless  tendency  of  spirit  being 
to  incarnate  itself.  His  mind  lies  uncovered  to 
the  mysticisms  of  nature.  Out  of  the  few  facts 
which  he  knows  of  variations  and  transformations 
of  form  in  the  kingdom  of  life  he  has  constructed 
a  very  brilliant  and  iridescent  vision  of  what  he 
conceives  to  be  going  on  around  him.  The  doc- 
trine of  reincarnation  is  now  the  breath  of  the 
religious  nature  of  millions  of  Indian  people.  The 
f  259 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

air  is  full  to  bursting  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed. 
The  sensuous  world  teems  with  the  new  forms  of 
his  ancestors.  His  beliefs  are  so  innocently  ani- 
mistic that  they  intoxicate  him  and  profoundly 
shape  his  inmost  spirit.  Granted  that  he  lives  in 
a  world  of  dreams  and  fancies,  and  not  one  of  solid 
fact,  he  is  yet  not  far  away  from  a  great  truth. 
Every  sprouting  seed  germ  is  a  reincarnation  of 
type.  The  Negro  woman  who  wished  to  look 
through  the  telescope  to  see  her  Lord  was  as  near 
the  whole  truth  as  the  astronomer  who  saw  only 
revolving  planets.  One  was  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious; the  other  was  mad.  General  Nogi,  when 
the  siege  of  Port  Arthur  was  about  hah*  over, 
built  a  rude  monument  in  the  dip  of  the  hills  to 
the  honor  of  the  twenty  thousand  Japanese  al- 
ready dead;  and  he  made  a  speech  to  them  which 
was  an  apology  for  the  necessity  of  having  to 
send  them  out  of  the  world.  Yet,  when  the  em- 
peror dies,  Nogi  and  his  wife,  of  their  own  accord, 
keep  him  company. 

Following  the  battle  of  the  Japan  Sea,  the 
interchange  of  congratulations  between  the  ad- 
miral and  the  emperor  contained  a  rare  recog- 
nition of  the  ancestral  faith.  The  formality  had 
in  it  a  dramatic  appeal  to  that  deep  feeling  of  a 
260 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

nation  that  it  was  better  to  be  numbered  with  the 
heroic  ancestors  than  to  be  alive.  After  Japan's 
war  with  China,  and  Port  Arthur  was  taken  by 
Russia,  no  less  than  forty  officers  of  the  Japanese 
army,  unable  to  endure  the  national  humilia- 
tion, committed  suicide  by  seppuku.  The  ex- 
planation of  Japan's  desperate  battalions  through 
the  war  with  Russia  was  a  patriotism  which  had 
its  center  of  draft  in  another  world.  The  sense  of 
that  world  sways  the  Japanese  mind  in  all  psycho- 
logical moments.  This  little  man  of  blood  and 
iron,  who  has  taught  his  children  through  forty 
generations  to  endure  pain  without  flinching,  on 
the  other  side  of  him,  has  a  keen  sensibility  to 
every  lesson  of  beauty  and  joy.  A  flower  by  the 
roadside  sends  him  into  ecstasy.  The  very  heart 
of  him  is  open  to  all  pleasures  of  sight  and  sound. 
Errors  of  understanding,  with  the  Asiatic,  are 
adverse  facts  there,  as  elsewhere;  but  he  lives 
close  to  the  root  ideas  of  the  world.  Prophetically, 
he  is  a  strong  man  on  this  planet.  He  will  prob- 
ably not  be  an  inferiority  in  the  world's  last  find- 
ings. He  may  show  himself  prepared  to  take  a 
man's  part  in  that  rising  empire  of  human  con- 
servations which  must  precede  the  final  federa- 
tions. 

261 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Defective  Viewpoint  of  the  West. 

The  Western  mind,  supposedly  vastly  superior, 
glorifies  the  wood,  the  hay,  the  stubble.  Land, 
sea,  ships,  iron,  coal,  silver,  gold,  railroads,  manu- 
factories, commerce,  cities,  highways,  palaces,  in- 
heritances, politics,  diplomacies,  armies,  dread- 
noughts, salted  with  a  little  poetry  and  art  and 
music  and  mental  culture;  but  nothing  worth 
while  outside  of  that  category.  These  are  the 
practical  concerns  of  a  practical  age.  Self-poise, 
which  we  have  constructed  into  a  crutch,  has 
come  to  mean  a  disinclination  to  consider  seriously 
the  primary  facts  of  life — joy,  sorrow,  accounta- 
bility, God.  Religion?  It  will  not  work  in  a 
store  or  in  politics.  It  is  sentimental.  These 
major  practical  millions  throw  themselves  with 
remorseless  energy  into  the  one  business  of  mak- 
ing money,  and  seventy-five  per  cent  of  them 
fail  to  get  what  they  go  after.  And  yet  they  are 
practical.  In  this  new,  fresh  country  in  any  great 
city  already  there  are  whole  acres  of  people  pos- 
itively retrogressive.  They  are  struck  with  aes- 
thetic and  spiritual  death.  The  very  viewpoint 
of  life  with  them  is  a  cosmic  insanity.  Vast  ener- 
gies are  now  at  work  in  the  Western  world  to  grill 
out  a  primary  personal  instinct.  The  American 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

public  school  system  is  educating  childhood  away 
from  one  of  its  cosmic  moorings — not  by  intent, 
but  through  the  lazy  policy  of  trying  to  move  along 
a  line  of  least  resistance.  The  defect  is  funda- 
mental, and  without  fundamental  correction  our 
civilization  can  not  last. 

A  Theocracy,  and  its  Humanistic  Values. 

Monotheism  reached  its  purest  Oriental  form 
among  the  Hebrews.  Their  conception  of  the  one 
God  appears  to  have  almost  completed  itself  in 
the  time  of  the  patriarchs.  It  became  a  fanat- 
icism— as  much  so  as  it  is  with  the  Arab  to-day. 
Through  an  idolatrous  time  among  idolatrous 
peoples,  and  in  the  face  of  every  grievous  error  of 
life,  they  made  their  way  with  it,  in  unyielding 
devotion,  for  three  thousand  years.  From  the 
moment  of  their  escape  into  the  Arabian  wilder- 
ness they  began  the  building  of  a  theocratic  gov- 
ernment which,  for  efficiency  and  strength,  had 
no  equal  at  the  time,  and  has  since  been  one  of 
the  unique  marvels  of  statecraft.  In  the  directest 
way  they  were  a  God-ruled  people.  His  will  was 
made  known  to  them  through  Moses  and  the 
priests  and  the  prophets.  They  saw  the  incense 
cloud  by  day  and  the  glare  of  the  altar  fires  at 
263 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

night.  The  authority  to  which  they  gave  heed, 
and  under  which  they  were  unhesitant  in  moving 
forward,  was  absolute  and  inerrant.  God,  to 
them,  was  a  being  of  infinite  power,  wisdom,  and 
righteousness — creator  and  preserver  of  all  things 
— lawgiver,  ruler,  king.  The  Hebrew  outlook  on 
life  was  God  possessed  to  the  last  details  of  events. 
But  he  was  narrow-visioned.  He  expected  his 
God  to  stand  with  him  in  his  vindictiveness 
against  his  enemies.  The  logic  of  the  exasper- 
ating contrasts  of  his  own  life  did  not  bother  him. 
His  victories  over  his  enemies  were  always  favors 
from  God.  He  was  intense,  fanatical  as  the  Mos- 
lem is  to-day.  The  French  Government  has 
lately  piped  fresh  water  from  the  springs  of  the 
uplands  into  the  cisterns  of  Aglabites  in  Kairowan, 
and  the  Turks  are  very  thankful  that  Allah  made 
the  Christian  dogs  work  for  the  benefit  of  the 
faithful. 

The  point  of  credit  to  the  Hebrew  is — he 
nursed  the  God  idea  in  history  to  a  permanence. 
His  political  career  was  hapless.  The  more  pow- 
erful nations  about  him  made  his  country  a  buffer 
state  for  many  wars  and  devastations.  The 
strong  currents  of  classic  and  Oriental  history 
flowed  through  and  about  this  Palestine  country 
264 


THE  EASTERN  MIND. 

and  made  it  a  favored  territory  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  the  religious  ideas  of  which  the  Hebrew 
was  the  conservator.  It  is  because  of  the  pro- 
found sense  which  these  people  had  of  the  per- 
sonality and  righteousness  of  God  that  they  were 
able  to  invest  the  divine  idea  with  its  humanistic 
values.  The  Brahmin  call  was  to  meditation,  to 
the  quenching  of  desire,  to  Nirvana.  The  Greek 
mind  filled  the  whole  earth  with  divinities,  whom 
it  worshiped  largely  through  the  plastic  beauty  of 
its  art.  It  never  distressed  itself  over  the  law  of 
duty.  If  authority  was  invested  in  the  absolute, 
it  was  the  far-away  reason  and  could  not  be  pla- 
cated. 

The  Hebrew  God  was  always  before  any  man's 
eyes.  The  human  life  always  stood  convicted  in 
the  presence  of  the  terrible  righteousness.  "I 
have  set  before  you  life  and  death."  "I  kill  and  I 
make  alive."  The  sacrifices  of  the  altar  all  recog- 
nized that  fact.  Nowhere  else,  among  any  people, 
do  we  find  such  insistence  on  personal  obedience 
to  God  as  the  supreme  law  of  life.  The  prophets 
did  not  mince  words.  They  were  aflame  with  the 
message  of  righteousness.  They  were  faithful  in 
exhortation,  heroic  in  rebuke  and  denunciation. 
They  had  a  hard  time  of  it.  They  were  stoned, 
265 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

sawn  asunder,  tempted,  slain  by  the  sword,  wan- 
dered in  sheep  skins  and  goat  skins,  were  desti- 
tute, afflicted,  tormented.  They  wandered  in 
deserts  and  mountains  and  hid  in  the  dens  and 
caves  of  the  earth;  but  they  never  sounded  a  false 
note.  The  moral  code  of  these  teachers  had  fiber. 
It  passed  into  history  a  thing  of  life.  On  its  own 
face,  in  its  own  nature,  by  right  of  its  serviceable- 
ness  to  men,  by  reason  of  the  compulsion  of  its 
principles  and  teachings  to  the  conservation  of 
what  is  just  in  human  relationships,  and  obligatory 
in  worship,  it  has  become  an  essential  of  the 
absolute  religion. 

Hebrew  history  to  the  tune  of  Christ  has  in 
it,  therefore,  two  essentials.  The  first  is  the 
righteousness  of  God.  The  second  is  the  human 
obligation  which  that  imposes.  An  adequate  con- 
ception of  the  divine  character  links  itself  with  a 
moral  code  which  embodies  the  basal  necessities 
of  human  action.  These  two  features  now  stand 
in  the  religious  world  like  axioms  in  mathematics. 
They  are  self-evident — self-evidencing.  They  have 
the  direct  assent  of  the  moral  judgment.  The 
world  lives  and  grows  under  their  action  because 
they  are  life.  Both  have  lived  beyond  all  hazard  of 
losing  out  from  among  permanent  religious  values. 
266 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

The  Incarnation. 

THE  second  chapter  of  this  book  contains  the 
following  basal  contentions:  First — the  reality  of 
material  substance.  Second — the  ultimate  know- 
able  nature  of  being  is  spirit.  Third — material 
substance  and  spirit  being  are  evidenced  by  their 
constant  and  ceaseless  co-ordinations.  Fourth — 
any  theory  of  intelligence  applied  to  the  move- 
ments of  matter  must  include  the  natural  order; 
but  it  implies  also  a  degree  of  spontaneity,  be- 
cause it  is  of  the  nature  of  intelligence  to  become 
initiative,  creative,  administrative.  This  world's 
life  has  no  adequate  explanation  under  the  theory 
of  the  unbroken  sequence  of  law.  Fifth — the 
human  mind  has  no  capacity  to  understand  that 
which  is  not  sensuously  imaged  forth. 

The  above  implications,  we  think,  make  room 
for  the  Christ  of  history  in  the  cosmic  plan.  In- 
carnation, or  the  manifestation  of  some  unit  of 
nature,  phenomenally,  is  the  most  familiar  fact  of 
267 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

life.  The  Wordmade  flesh  has  its  analogies  to 
the  outer  limits  of  human  knowledge.  Redemp- 
tion is  philosophic.  Spontaneous  expressions  in 
moral  government  are  also.  The  central  truths 
of  the  Christ  character  and  the  Christ  message 
probably  do  not  have  exclusive  application  to 
this  planet.  They  are  evidently  active  in  the 
control  of  intelligences  everywhere.  The  Divine 
immanence  can  not  be  out  of  harmony  with  it- 
self, and  the  whole  universe,  therefore,  must  have 
one  ethic  for  its  self-cleansing. 

The  Works  of  the  Christ. 

We  get  the  deeper  understandings  of  the  cos- 
mos as  we  detect  its  unitary  tendencies.  The 
glow-worm's  fire  is  a  direct  apprehensiveness  with- 
out a  brain.  Wild  geese  sense  an  approaching 
storm  five  hundred  miles  away.  The  yellow- 
tipped  plover,  by  a  direct  knowing,  makes  its 
unerring  way  from  the  tablelands  of  Mexico  to 
the  coasts  of  Labrador.  The  best  we  can  do  with 
that  marvel  of  orientation  is — the  plover  knows 
because  it  knows.  The  bugs  and  angle-worms 
do  things  which  are  the  same  as  miracles  to  us. 
We  are  obliged  to  face  the  facts  and  file  the  mys- 
268 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

teries  for  future  reference.  The  terms  of  human 
knowledge  are  so  often  outclassed  in  the  special 
truth  correspondences  of  these  lowly  forms  of  life 
that  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  say  that  anything 
is  impossible.  We  are  not  sure  of  our  ground 
when  we  say  that  the  Christ  knew  as  the  birds 
know,  but  His  endowments  were  such  that  He 
entered  a  realm  of  truth  which  was  to  us  out- 
standing, and  in  a  way  we  do  not  know.  There 
are  certain  features  which  distinguish  the  Christ 
ministry  from  all  other  teachings.  As  sure  as  the 
world  stands,  Christ  had  access  to  an  underland 
of  power  and  truth  which  has  made  His  teaching 
of  matchless  interest  and  delight  to  the  human 
mind.  Out  of  the  deeps,  by  immediacy,  Christ 
brought  a  divine  message  to  men  and  set  it  into 
language.  Out  of  the  same  deeps  He  had  power 
over  disease  and  death.  That  record  is  so  legible 
it  will  not  rub  out  or  fade.  But  it  is  clear  that 
He  did  not  make  this  extra-human  investment  of 
first  import  in  His  ministry.  Above  His  "works" 
He  placed  His  life  messages  in  the  parables. 
Above  them  He  placed  His  completed  world  idea 
of  God  as  the  Father.  And  above  everything — 
like  a  signet  in  the  center  of  the  truth  of  the 
269 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

universe,  He  placed  that  outflung  passion  of  His 
heart  which  brought  Him  to  the  sacrifice  of  the 
cross. 

Blood  Brotherhoods. 

Unpleasant  sensations  are  produced  by  the 
bellowings  of  a  herd  of  cattle  when  they  scent 
the  fresh  blood  of  one  of  their  kind.  It  stirs  the 
human  feeling  like  the  sadness  of  a  death  wail. 
The  oldest  herdsmen  often  mount  their  horses 
and  ride  out  of  hearing  until  it  assuages  itself. 
The  sight  of  blood  often  causes  dizziness  and 
fainting.  With  the  soldier  in  battle  it  banishes 
fear.  A  savage  would  soon  learn  that  when  his 
blood  flowed  out  his  life  went  out.  He  would  then 
connect  his  blood  with  his  life.  Any  savage  would 
be  equal  to  that  idea.  He  would  know  its  im- 
portance. He  would  order  his  life  by  it.  He 
would  deal  with  it  as  a  first  blunt  fact  of  expe- 
rience. He  would  say,  "The  blood  is  the  life" — 
which  is  not  scientifically  true;  but  to  any  dark- 
ened understanding  it  is  practically  true:  and  it 
is  the  working  idea  of  a  large  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  world  to-day.  The  Levite  code  says 
the  life  is  in  the  blood,  which  is  a  nearer  approach 
to  the  real  fact.  This  was  the  reason  why  blood 
270 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

eating  was  forbidden  by  the  Jews.  For  the  same 
reason  the  early  Gentile  converts  were  forbidden 
to  eat  animals  strangled.  Influenced  by  the 
tradition,  many  at  this  time  have  a  revulsion 
against  blood  as  food.  Because  of  the  strong 
feelings  which  the  sight  of  it  produces,  and  be- 
cause of  the  notion  that,  realistically  speaking,  it 
is  the  Me  of  the  body,  at  a  very  early  time  in  man's 
history,  and  among  most  peoples,  blood  became 
the  symbol  of  strong  friendships. 

The  mutual  pledges  of  the  Arabians  were  often 
sealed  by  rubbing  the  palms  of  the  hands  together, 
after  incisions  had  been  made  in  them.  Our  own 
custom  of  hand-shaking  is  a  mild-mannered  trait, 
remaining,  of  the  ancient  barbarity.  The  Cata- 
line  conspirators  passed  around  among  them- 
selves goblets  of  wine  mixed  with  blood,  of  which 
they  partook  with  an  oath.  When  the  Scythians 
made  strong  friendships,  they  came  together  and 
cut  their  fingers  simultaneously  and  let  the  blood 
mix  with  their  drinks.  It  was  the  custom  of 
ancient  kings,  when  they  made  an  agreement  of 
peace,  to  tie  their  thumbs  together,  and  when 
the  blood  pressed  to  the  surfaces  to  make  small 
incisions,  and  each  king  then  would  lick  the  bleed- 
ing thumbs.  The  Dyaks  of  Borneo  enter  into  an 
271 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

oath  of  friendship  by  drawing  a  little  blood  from 
the  arm  of  each  covenanter — then  they  partake 
of  it. 

In  Tahiti  a  marriage  ceremony  is  celebrated 
by  the  two  mothers  of  the  married  pair  sprink- 
ling mingled  drops  of  their  own  blood  at  the  feet 
of  the  bride.  The  ceremony  is  supposed  to  level 
all  ranks  and  claims  to  family  precedence  and 
make  one  the  family  lines.  Among  the  Karens  of 
Burmah,  when  a  covenant  of  peace  is  made  be- 
tween tribes,  they  hold  a  solemn  public  meeting, 
at  which  blood  is  taken  from  the  thigh  of  each 
chief  and  mixed.  Then  the  chiefs  mutually  touch 
the  blood  with  their  fingers  and  put  it  to  their 
lips.  A  recent  traveler  says  she  saw  the  family 
and  friends  of  two  young  men  meet  at  the  base 
of  the  mountain  of  Lebanon,  where  the  covenant 
of  blood  was  entered.  Each  young  man  took  a 
piece  of  parchment  and  wrote  on  it  his  pledge  of 
fealty,  for  life,  to  the  other.  Each  one  took  his 
own  oath  and  folded  it  tightly,  and  put  it  in  a 
small  leather  pocket  and  sewed  it  up  securely. 
Then  the  two  exchanged  packages,  to  wear  with  a 
string  about  the  neck — after  each  package  had 
been  sprinkled  with  then"  mingled  blood.  The 
women  of  the  South  Sea  Islands,  when  moved 
272 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

strongly  by  their  affections,  are  likely  to  strike 
their  heads  with  some  sharp  instrument  and  let 
the  blood  run  down  over  their  faces  and  shoulders. 
An  Egyptian  woman  rushed  out  in  front  of  a 
young  man  who  was  carrying  the  baggage  of  a 
tourist,  and  she  struck  herself  in  the  edge  of  ner 
hair  with  a  shark's  tooth,  and  the  blood  ran  down 
over  her  face  as  she  looked  with  eagerness  into 
the  face  of  the  young  man.  The  traveler  protested, 
and  the  young  man  said,  "She  is  my  mother;  she 
is  expressing  her  love  for  me." 

Mr.  Stanley,  in  his  second  trip  of  exploration, 
after  trying,  without  success,  to  avoid  the  ubiq- 
uitous chief  Mirambo,  decided,  if  possible,  to 
make  a  covenant  of  friendship  with  him.  After 
much  parley  they  met  in  an  open  space  and  took 
seats  on  a  buffalo  robe,  facing  each  other.  An 
incision  was  made  in  the  black  arm,  another  in 
the  white  one,  and  the  blood  from  each  was  put 
into  a  pot  of  beer — then  each  man  drank  half  the 
beer.  Then  the  medicine  man  held  a  dagger  over 
Stanley's  .head,  with  imprecations  if  he  violated 
his  oath  of  friendship.  He  did  the  same  with 
Mirambo.  Then  the  two  arms  were  crossed  at 
the  point  of  incision  and  the  blood  was  trans- 
fused. Mirambo's  idea  was  then  that  a  part  of 
18  273 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

his  own  life  had  passed  into  Stanley,  and  to  kill 
him  would  be  to  strike  at  himself.  Mr.  Stanley 
made  great  use  of  this  rite,  familiar  to  many  of 
the  tribes.  The  root  idea  among  these  black 
natives  was — the  blood  is  the  life,  and  blood 
transfusion  is  a  transfusion  of  natures. 

A  custom  prevailed  among  the  ancient  Ger- 
mans, at  their  banquets,  to  open  the  veins  on  their 
foreheads  and  mix  drops  of  blood  with  their 
drink,  each  one  partaking — as  the  highest  act  of 
hospitality  and  friendship.  The  American  In- 
dians made  use  of  the  scalp  in  their  most  binding 
friendships  and  tribal  treaties.  The  wildest  of 
these  Northern  tribes  were  likely  to  devour  a 
captured  foe  of  great  prowess — they  aimed  to  get 
his  spirit.  The  Aztecs  of  Mexico  were  cannibals. 
The  custom  had  a  religious  base,  growing  out  of 
the  idea  that  the  blood  is  the  life. 

Damon  the  Pythagorean  gave  himself  as  a 
hostage  for  his  friend  Pythias;  and  they  were 
probably  covenanted  brothers.  Damon  proved 
his  friendship  by  offering  his  life. 

Abraham  and  Abimelech  made  a  covenant  of 
peace  and  good  will.     The  form  of  the  ceremony 
is  not  given  in  the  context,  but  the  customary 
form  was  probably  used. 
274 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

David  and  Jonathan  made  a  covenant  under 
very  affecting  and  trying  circumstances.  The 
ceremony  is  not  given.  The  language  hints  at 
the  idea  that  they  cut  a  covenant.  They  became 
brothers  in  the  highest  and  holiest  sense  known 
to  the  Oriental  mind.  That  oath  of  mutual  fealty 
was  never  violated.  Jonathan  thereafter  sur- 
renders his  right  to  the  kingship  to  David.  And 
years  after  Jonathan  was  dead,  and  when  David 
had  come  to  the  throne,  a  crippled  son  of  Jona- 
than sits  at  the  royal  table  for  life,  as  a  token  of  a 
friendship  which  was  stronger  than  death. 

The  custom  of  blood  covenanting  connected 
itself  in  a  very  early  time,  naturally,  with  the 
religious  instincts.  If  the  gods  were  angry,  the 
effort  was  to  appease  them  as  an  enemy  was  ap- 
peased. When  the  gods  were  propitious,  their 
favor  was  sealed  as  the  good  will  and  devotion  of 
a  friend  was  sealed.  The  primitive  man's  god 
was  made  tangible  in  an  idol.  His  own  life  was 
tangible  in  his  own  blood.  He  made  his  life  speak 
to  his  god  in  that  language.  In  that  barbaric  way 
he  propitiated  the  mysterious  powers. 


275 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Substitute  Blood. 

Animal  blood  as  a  substitute  symbol  is  a 
higher  and  more  humane  use  of  it.  Cain  and 
Abel  brought  their  sacrifices  to  God.  Cain  made 
a  respectful  offering  of  the  products  of  the  field. 
It  was  of  equal  value,  doubtless,  to  that  of  Abel. 
Cain  made  God  a  present.  It  was  a  kind  of  ex- 
change between  the  high  contracting  parties.  Abel 
brought  an  animal  and  sacrificed  it.  The  blood 
shedding  was  a  symbol  of  his  life  offering  and 
fealty  to  God.  It  was  the  language  of  contrition 
and  obedience.  For  that  reason  he  worshiped 
acceptably.  Then  appeared  the  human  nature  to 
resent  that  which  rebukes  it.  Cain  killed  Abel. 
After  the  murder  Abel's  blood  cried  out  from  the 
ground.  To  the  modern  mind  that  is  a  forceful 
figure  of  speech — to  the  Oriental  it  was  a  realism. 

Animal  blood  was  not  entirely  substituted 
among  the  Hebrews.  God  made  a  covenant  with 
Abraham  and  promised  him  seed  as  the  stars — 
the  supreme  ambition  of  a  nomad  sheik.  Abra- 
ham pledged  obedience.  The  token  was  circum- 
cision. The  blood  of  Abraham's  foreskin  was 
poured  out  on  the  ground.  He  had  a  test  of  his 
faith  in  the  lonesome  years  when  Sarah  was  barren. 
He  sees  again  the  divine  faithfulness  when  Isaac 
276 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

is  born.  When  Isaac  is  demanded  he  risks  all  in 
obedience — and  then  he  is  taken  into  the  heights, 
where  he  learns  that  the  will  of  God  is  not  a 
human  death  sacrifice,  but  the  offering  of  the 
living  powers  in  service.  Abraham  then  entered 
the  throne-room  of  the  Eternal — he  became  the 
friend  of  God.  His  descendants,  now  scattered 
over  the  earth,  keep  sacred  that  most  remarkable 
religious  rite  of  circumcision.  The  Jewish  blood 
covenanting  is  the  life  offering  to  God. 

After  Isaac  then  Jacob,  and  the  going  down 
into  Egypt;  then  the  fruitfulness  in  Goshen;  then 
the  bondage;  and  finally  two  millions  and  a  half 
of  people  out  of  the  loins  of  Abraham — cross  the 
Red  Sea  into  the  Arabian  wilderness.  They  take 
with  them  the  black  marks  of  slavery,  their  super- 
stitions and  their  sins;  but  they  take  also  the 
radicals  of  their  faith — a  life  offering  of  obedience 
to  God.  Each  Israelite  conies  to  the  altar  with 
his  own  gift.  The  blood  symbol  is  the  only  lan- 
guage he  can  understand.  It  is  to  him  a  spiritual 
grappling  hook.  He  is  yet  a  low  creature,  and 
prone  to  lose  sight  of  its  meanings  and  get  himself 
held  by  the  glitter  of  the  tabernacle  and  the  smell 
of  burning  meats.  It  took  a  vast  time  to  drive 
him,  and  through  him  into  history,  this  first 
277 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

lesson  of  the  absolute  religion.  The  divine  right- 
eousness put  over  him  an  ethical  code  under 
which  he  prospered  whenever  he  obeyed.  The 
law  of  the  individual  was  the  law  of  the  mass. 
The  curses  and  blessings  of  Ebal  and  Gerizim 
followed  that  hapless  people  until  the  law  of  a 
nation's  life  became  as  clear  as  any  open  day. 

In  the  later  Hebrew  periods,  when  a  better 
culture  and  a  broader  acquaintance  with  the  world 
made  possible  a  degree  less  of  emphasis  on  a  crass 
symbol,  the  bloody  ceremonial  of  the  earlier  time 
was  greatly  abbreviated.  The  later  sacred  ad- 
monishings  placed  the  emphasis  on  the  reality, 
rather  than  the  token  of  it.  "Will  I  eat  the  flesh 
of  bulls,  or  drink  the  blood  of  goats? — offer  unto 
God  thanksgiving."  "To  what  purpose  is  the 
multitude  of  your  sacrifices?,"  "Bring  no  more 
vain  oblations,  wash  you,  make  you  clean."  Any 
ceremony  is  an  abomination  when  its  significance 
is  lost.  Any  symbol  is  a  misfortune  when  the 
mind  does  not  get  beyond  it. 

The  Crucifixion. 

This  Jewish  epoch  closes  with  mighty  mean- 
ings.    The  libraries  are  rich  with  much  fine  writ- 
ing about  the  preparation  of  the  world  for  Chris- 
278 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

tianity;  but  more  significantly  it  seems  that  many 
generations  must  have  had  in  view  a  mind  pre- 
pared to  understand  the  crucifixion. 

A  Teacher  now  appears  whose  speech  and 
thought  and  habits  reveal  Him  to  His  age.  Any 
student  of  the  times,  and  of  what  He  said  and  did, 
and  of  how  He  lived  among  the  people,  might 
well  believe  He  was  the  son  of  David.  His  words 
were  commanding  by  the  fact  that  ordinary  his- 
tory made  room  for  them  in  its  necessities.  He 
was  a  wide-awake  Oriental,  and  not  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  His  times.  No  teacher  ever  made  such 
splendid  use  of  the  traditions  and  heredities  of 
his  own  people.  He  restored  to  them  the  lost 
Old  Testament  meanings.  He  spoke  in  terms 
which  they  knew,  and  brought  to  them  a  larger 
conception  of  the  divine. 

The  austerities  of  the  old  righteousness,  under 
which  they  lived,  He  softened  with  a  fuller  under- 
standing of  what  God  is  to  man.  God  is  the 
infinite  Father,  and  all  the  people  of  the  world 
are  His  children.  The  rule  of  the  outward  author- 
ity He  changed  to  the  inward  motive.  His  teach- 
ing, in  a  brief  period  of  three  years,  immediately 
vitalized  itself  in  a  world  of  hungry  human  beings. 
279 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

His  words  were  all  intensely  human.  He  in- 
terprets the  needs  of  every  lowly  heart.  The 
spiritually  starved  multitudes  hang  on  His  lips. 
He  tells  the  story  of  the  Father's  love.  He  gave 
Himself  utterly  to  doing  good.  He  seals  both  His 
story  and  His  gift  in  the  death  on  the  cross.  He 
calls  His  own  blood  to  witness  that  God  is  love. 
His  arrest  and  trial  and  conviction  was  a  mis- 
carriage of  justice  in  an  ordinary  criminal  pro- 
cedure. The  treachery  and  the  horror  of  it  are 
not  very  great  mysteries.  He  died  on  a  gibbet, 
but  He  made  of  it  a  sacrament.  The  cruelties  of 
the  moment  are  now  put  aside,  and  He  comes  to 
express  His  divine  affection  in  a  way  which  is 
beyond  the  capacity  of  formal  speech.  An  Ori- 
ental could  not  mistake  what  He  meant.  The 
blood  symbol  was  to  Him,  and  to  all  about  Him, 
the  highest  and  most  sacred  of  human  utterances. 
All  reserves  are  swept  away.  There  He  hangs, 
the  blood-stained  Lover  of  men.  He  poured  out 
His  life,  as  His  blood,  in  a  compassion  which  has 
been  breaking  the  world's  heart  ever  since — melt- 
ing it  down  to  make  it  tender  with  immortal  love. 
We  come  to  a  place  where  a  child  may  under- 
stand. No  abhorrent  substitutions,  no  govern- 
mental theories  to  patch  and  sustain,  no  angry 
280 


THE  COSMIC  CHRIST. 

God  to  placate,  no  divine  demon  to  send  Him 
to  such  a  death.  The  gates  swing  outward  to  all 
God's  children  now.  When  the  prodigal  comes  to 
himself,  and  the  Father's  love  breaks  in  on  him, 
and  he  turns  around  and  goes  home,  the  at-one- 
ment  is  complete.  The  power  is  not  in  the  blood, 
but  in  the  love.  When  we  look  for  healing  in  the 
material  blood  we  are  waterlogged  with  the  sym- 
bol. How  sadly  the  Christian  ages  have  over- 
stimulated  a  supposed  efficacy  in  the  blood  in  an 
effort  to  get  out  of  it  a  meaning  and  a  merit  which 
was  never  there.  The  crucifixion  of  Christ  gives 
awful  emphasis  to  a  cosmic  fact.  The  divine  love 
atones  and  makes  moral  distinctions  clear,  and 
becomes  boundless  in  its  power  the  moment  a 
sinner  flies  to  it  for  refuge  and  rest  and  service. 


281 


CHAPTER  XV. 

PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

The  Right  Mental  Perspective. 

WE  see  no  reason  why  the  same  principles  of 
interpretation  should  not  apply  to  the  records  of 
a  divine  revelation  as  are  applied  to  any  piece  of 
Oriental  writing.  The  thing  to  be  aimed  at,  with 
any  ancient  document,  is  a  continuous  under- 
standing of  it.  If  the  message  is  a  thing  of  life, 
usually  it  is  shunted  out  of  a  dead  language  into 
a  new  one,  and  from  one  language  to  another. 
Its  method,  style  of  thought,  images,  figures, 
rhetoric,  with  the  coloring  which  it  has  received 
from  the  outward  intellectual  conditions  of  its 
production,  are  carried  over,  to  a  degree,  into  new 
language  expressions.  An  understanding  of  facts 
like  these  is  an  understanding  of  the  writing.  It 
is  always  human.  The  grammar  and  the  diction- 
ary are  always  necessary  helps  to  get  at  the  mean- 
ing of  any  document;  but  certain  classes  of  writ- 
ings do  not  reveal  all  their  meaning  in  that  way. 
JSsop's  Fables  say  one  thing  and  mean  another. 
282 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

They  are  very  untrue  to  fact,  but  very  true  to 
life.  It  would  be  absurd  to  force  them  to  mean 
what  they  say.  The  reader  usually  has  no  diffi- 
culty with  these  rich,  wholesome  sayings.  Why 
does  "Don  Quixote"  live  through  the  generations? 
The  narrative,  on  the  face  of  it,  ought  to  be  buried 
for  its  arrant  nonsense.  Is  it  a  fool  fighting  wind- 
mills? That  puts  the  method  of  the  book  in  front 
of  its  meaning.  The  serious  business  of  "Don 
Quixote"  is  to  incorporate  some  living  lessons  of 
its  age.  It  is  a  satire  on  mediaeval  extravagances. 
It  laughs  to  scorn  a  bombastic  chivalry.  There 
are  good  reasons  in  the  book  why  we  can  not 
possibly  have  derision  for  its  jangled  intellect. 
Is  Dante's  "Inferno"  a  trip  to  perdition  and 
back?  Is  it  a  disgusting  piece  of  realism?  The 
world  refuses  to  let  it  die,  notwithstanding  a  lack 
of  relish  for  its  gruesome  images,  because  in  the 
dramatic  narrative  are  noble  lessons  and  an 
austere  morality. 

In  the  same  way  myths,  parables,  allegories, 
fables,  visions,  dreams  may  have  in  them  im- 
perishable values.  It  is  often  no  more  than  a 
child's  work  to  distinguish  the  substance  of  a 
writing  from  its  form.  The  form  may  be  felicitous 
or  not — it  is  the  substance  which  gives  it  per- 
283 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

manence.  Kipling  says  the  magic  of  literature  is 
in  the  words,  and  not  in  the  man.  He  ought  to 
know;  but,  indeed,  words  go  together  by  no  trick. 
They  may  have  a  wizardry  of  their  own,  but  if 
they  are  not  the  voices  of  a  life — if  they  convey 
no  flame  of  thought,  no  glow  of  affection — they 
become  a  hollow,  noisy  mouthing.  A  piece  of 
literature  is  not  an  assemblage  of  words  fitly 
chosen.  It  is  not  anything  material.  The  form 
may  be  overdrawn,  and  yet  justified  if  it  grips 
vividly  the  idea. 

No  one  knows  who  wrote  "The  Arabian 
Nights."  The  author  long  ago  received  recog- 
nition of  his  genius,  and  that  is  sufficient.  He  was 
not  a  recluse  or  a  sleepy  head.  The  book  is  still 
a  classic,  of  its  kind,  even  among  Western  peoples. 
Children  are  entranced  by  the  wonders  of  these 
stories.  Grown  folks  are  charmed  by  the  odorous 
air  of  Araby  which  blows  through  its  pages.  Its 
dreamy  images  have  brought  into  intellectual 
unity  the  legends  and  folk-lore  of  a  thousand 
years  of  the  history  of  a  corrupt  and  indolent 
people.  When  we  wish  to  feel  a  Simon-pure  Mos- 
lem pulse,  we  read  the  Thousand  and  One  Nights 
rather  than  formal  history. 

Who  wrote  the  Book  of  Genesis?  Inasmuch 
284 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

as  nobody  knows,  the  reader  ought  to  be  released 
from  any  bondage  to  the  letter  of  it  and  feel  free 
to  ask  the  blunt  question,  "What  does  Genesis 
mean?"  No  document  so  old  as  that  could  have 
been  preserved  so  long  unless  it  had  a  message 
for  the  life  of  man.  Is  it  the  record  of  the  rather 
swift  business  of  shaping  the  earth  in  six  work 
days?  Is  it  Adam  made  out  of  a  pinch  of  dust? 
Is  it  Eve  made  out  of  Adam's  rib?  Is  it  the  snake 
standing  on  end?  Is  it  a  text-book  in  geology? 
It  is  well  known  to  scholarship  that  Genesis, 
grammatically  interpreted,  will  not  stand  any 
scientific  test.  Those  who  put  it  to  such  a  test 
have  not  yet  learned  to  read  an  Oriental  docu- 
ment. When  they  split  hairs  between  the  west 
and  northwest  sides,  and  then  decide  to  let  the 
whole  of  it  go  the  way  of  "Homer's  Legends," 
what  will  they  do  with  that  in  Genesis  which 
makes  it  live  through  the  centuries?  God,  crea- 
tion, moral  government,  human  responsibility — 
the  sabbatic  day?  If  they  let  these  go  they  will 
go  mad!  Genesis  means  God,  creation,  moral 
government,  human  responsibility — the  institu- 
tion of  the  Sabbath.  These  make  it  the  heaviest 
weighted  document  in  print.  And  when  we  con- 
sider the  adaptation  of  a  document  to  people  in 
285 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

all  stages  of  development  and  growth,  and  to  all 
times,  the  form  itself,  of  Genesis,  is  at  least  a 
stroke  of  genius.  It  will  be  noted  that  we  have 
these  secretarial  records  of  the  Bible  embedded 
in  this  kind  of  remarkable  and  various  form 
throughout.  The  book  is  a  very  library  of  all 
sorts — allegory  and  dream  and  vision  and  his- 
tory and  law-giving  and  poetry  and  drama  and 
epic  and  pastoral  and  prophetic  teaching  and 
denunciation  and  parable  and  narrative  and  doc- 
trine and  precept.  These  are  set  into  a  stream  of 
history  and  among  a  wayward  people.  The 
great  book  is  unitary  only  in  the  substance  of  its 
revealing. 

Is  it  not  clear  on  the  face  of  the  situation  that 
the  revelation  does  not  impinge  itself  on  any 
question  of  the  authorship  of  a  book  or  on  the 
way  a  book  has  been  put  together  or  on  the  place 
of  the  book  in  the  body  of  the  Scriptures  or  on  its 
age  or  on  its  inerrancies.  As  life  messages  they  are 
independent  of  any  question  of  criticism  or  of 
scholarly  research  for  the  last  facts  about  them. 
Their  value  is  not  in  their  form  any  more  than  a 
man's  value  is  in  his  clothes.  All  freedoms  of 
speech,  all  mental  Oriental  indirections  are  in  the 
book.  The  man  of  Patmos  takes  vast  excursions 
286 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

like  an  Arabian  knight;  and  his  gorgeous  and 
mixed  figures  would  bring  the  modern  mind  into 
confusion  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  he  returns 
to  the  earth  at  about  the  right  time  and  says, 
"He  that  hath  an  ear  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit 
saith  to  the  Churches." 

The  revelation  of  God  and  the  moral  law  are 
now  accomplished  facts.  In  themselves  consid- 
ered they  command  the  assent  of  man's  rational 
nature;  and  they  command  him  to  obedience  and 
service.  They  have  been  put  to  the  test  of  expe- 
rience and  have  been  proven  wholesome  and  good. 
The  welfare  of  the  world  has  been  immeasurably 
advanced  by  them.  They  need  no  other  defense. 
They  do  not  now  hinge  on  secretarial  inerrancies 
or  on  the  errors  of  sense  through  which  they  may 
have  been  first  put  into  script,  because  they  have 
become  a  part  of  the  life  of  the  world. 

When  we  partake  of  a  feast  and  are  strength- 
ened and  refreshed,  the  argument  is  at  an  end 
about  the  quality  of  the  food.  We  miss  the  whole 
point  of  view  when  we  magnify  the  smaller  things, 
under  the  mistaken  idea  that  the  vitalities  of  the 
revelation  are  hazarded  by  questions  of  criticism, 
high  or  low.  The  records  have  lived,  and  yet 
they  have  not  escaped  the  disapproval  of  the 
*  287 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

scholar  who  has  a  hectic  for  finding  small  blem- 
ishes. It  would  be  remarkable,  in  the  low  state 
of  civilization  through  which  they  have  come,  or 
in  the  bad  morals  of  a  stiff-neck  people,  or  their 
craftiness,  or  their  intrigues  and  treacheries,  or 
their  bad  men  at  the  head  of  affairs,  if  some- 
body had  not  touched  these  pages  with  soiled 
fingers.  It  is  a  dull  vision  which  does  not  see 
David's  vindictiveness  in  some  of  the  Psalms. 

Then,  the  books  of  the  Bible  were  written 
without  special  reference  to  one  another.  If  any 
of  these  authors  had  the  least  conception  of  the 
compilation  as  we  have  it  now,  no  intimation  has 
been  left  of  the  fact.  Not  until  the  whole  spirit 
and  teaching  of  the  gospel  had  become  embodied 
in  a  strong  and  conquering  Church  were  these 
writings  collated.  And  when  that  work  was  done, 
it  expressed  only  the  godly  judgment  of  devout 
believers  that  they  were  of  transcendent  spiritual 
worth.  Nothing  more  is  needed.  So  many  are 
these  written  documents,  and  so  diverse  in  quality, 
and  yet  all  in  one  key,  that  no  mistake  is  possible 
about  the  primary  implications  of  all  the  books. 
Each  book  has  been  written  by  a  holy  one  who 
had  the  spiritual  understanding,  and  he  has  made 
it  sweet  and  clean  and  clear-ringing,  and,  without 
288 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

collusion,  its  note  is  in  accord  with  all  the  others. 
When  we  take  into  account  the  way  in  which  the 
Bible  has  been  put  together,  these  facts  furnish 
for  it  the  highest  kind  of  credibility.  But  the 
message  does  not  depend  even  on  that  accredit- 
ing. They  have  made  their  appeal  to  the  pure 
reason  of  the  world,  and  have  been  accepted  for 
what  they  are  in  their  inner  spirit  and  teaching. 

Besides,  the  vitality  of  the  record  has  had 
expansion.  It  has  gotten  beyond  the  print — be- 
yond the  ecclesia.  A  great  capitalist,  who  does 
not  go  to  Church  on  rainy  Sundays,  and  who  is 
not  passionately  fond  of  preachers,  nevertheless 
is  fully  possessed  with  the  notion  that  the  only 
thing  for  a  man  to  do  with  his  life  is  to  throw  the 
full  force  of  it  in  the  direction  of  the  betterment 
of  the  world.  The  very  wind  of  the  doctrine  has 
blown  around  the  corner  and  caught  him  up  in 
its  currents. 

The  Scriptures  will  survive.  No  body  of  writ- 
ings is  so  secure  in  the  world's  affections.  They 
will  not  be  revised,  except  in  the  little  details  of 
grammar  and  rhetoric.  They  will  be  taken  from 
dead  languages  and  put  into  live  ones,  as  they 
have  been.  These  traditions  of  form  have  become 
sacred,  and  they  will  not  even  be  modernized. 
19  289 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Any  other  dress  for  the  meanings  would  appear 
strange  to  us.  For  these  reasons  many  of  us  do 
not  enjoy  the  new  version.  The  Bible  could  not 
even  be  limited  in  bulk  without  irreverence  and 
without  much  harm,  because  the  obsolete  features 
of  the  Word  yet  have  a  decided  value,  in  that 
they  help  to  maintain  the  connectedness  of  the 
life  stream  through  which  the  revelation  has  been 
given.  The  great  Book  does  not  need  improve- 
ment. Some  of  its  readers  need  deliverance  from 
the  letter  which  killeth. 

Does  Revelation  Mend  Nature? 

The  teaching  has  been  widespread  that  revela- 
tion is  the  mending  of  a  breach  in  the  cosmic 
movement.  That  breach  is  made  to  account  for 
the  cruelties  of  nature  and  for  the  fact  of  physical 
death.  Nature  is  never  supposed  to  be  at  work 
at  any  intelligible  task  or  to  temper  its  cruel  way 
with  any  beneficence  at  all.  Against  its  harsh 
mysteries  they  hold  up  Christ  as  the  Consolator. 
Christ  broods  over  a  seething  chaos — He  comes 
to  mend  an  abhorrent  scheme.  And  yet  how  rich 
the  Scripture  is  in  its  naturalisms.  Nature,  there, 
is  made  a  positive  revelator — in  the  shadowed 
great  rock,  the  green  pastures,  the  refreshing  dew, 
290 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

the  soothing  oil,  the  cool  running  brooks,  the  trees 
by  the  river  side,  the  growth  of  lilies,  the  water 
of  life,  the  vine  and  its  branches,  the  seed  cast  into 
the  ground,  the  leaven  in  the  lump,  the  sparrows, 
the  trees,  the  shepherded  flocks,  the  seasons,  the 
light  of  the  sun,  fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapor, 
stormy  wind  fulfilling  His  word,  mountains  and 
all  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  beasts  and 
all  cattle,  creeping  things,  and  flying  fowl.  In  a 
great  wealth  of  images  like  these  the  Word  be- 
comes a  teacher  of  sweet,  clean  things.  By  such 
voices  the  human  heart  is  actually  called  back 
to  its  cleansing  in  an  unpolluted  stream. 

Are  the  Scriptures  a  Finality? 

If  so,  in  what  sense?  In  the  sense  that  they 
are  the  secretarial  records  of  a  true  life  movement, 
in  which  the  divine  is  set  forth  to  the  human 
understanding.  They  are  a  transcript  of  the 
doings  of  a  representative  people,  and  for  so  long 
a  time  that  they  are  sure  to  have  no  dissonant 
notes  for  the  deep  strivings  of  the  human  heart  in 
any  future  time.  They  are  sure  to  have  no  con- 
tradictions of  historic  law,  because  all  the  cosmic 
elements  of  any  nation's  life  were  surely  wrought 
to  their  consequences  among  the  Jews.  The 
291 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Scriptures  are  sure  not  to  break  with  the  acquisi- 
tions of  general  truth  in  the  coming  ages  because 
they  are  not  only  expectant,  but  they  make  pro- 
vision for  the  growth  of  the  human  mind.  The 
Scriptures  do  not  complete  all  knowledge,  because 
the  world  moves;  but  they  fit  into  and  strengthen 
whatever  comes  to  pass  in  human  development. 
They  do  not  forestall  new  events  or  discoveries — 
they  transmit  to  the  world  a  life  message  so  vast 
in  its  provisions  that  in  it  all  things  whatsoever 
may  be  included. 

Not  Inerrant. 

The  grammar  and  the  dictionary  must  come 
into  use  all  the  time  when  we  seek  an  understand- 
ing of  the  life  message,  but  if  exclusive  use  is  made 
of  them  we  shall  be  thrown  into  confusion.  We 
have  to  do  with  an  ancient  language  and  an  an- 
cient mental  outlook.  We  must  deal  with  a  people 
under  a  low  civilization  and  with  a  mind  almost 
utterly  void  of  the  ballast  which  scientific  knowl- 
edge gives;  so  that  under  the  conditions  any  hard 
and  fast  interpretation  of  their  language  is  an 
absurdity.  Christian  scholars  have  wrangled  in 
great  fury  over  verbs  and  prepositions  and  root 
meanings  concerning  which  the  writers  of  the 
292 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

documents  were  utterly  innocent.  The  Word  is 
not  a  dictation.  It  is  not  inerrant.  All  language 
terms  are  imperfections.  A  verbally  inerrant 
message  must,  of  necessity,  be  set  in  an  inerrant 
and  absolute  language. 

There  is  no  absolute  language.  The  human 
mind  is  not  equal  to  the  mastery  and  use  of  that 
kind  of  language.  If  the  divine  message  could 
have  been  made  perfect  in  expression  in  the  begin- 
ning, the  mutations  of  human  speech  would  soon 
have  thrown  it  into  confusion.  The  Bible  is  a 
human  document  about  God  and  duty.  Its  cen- 
tral teachings  have  been  set  into  so  many  facets 
of  light — they  have  been  presented  to  the  human 
mind  in  so  many  different  angles  of  reflection; 
they  have  been  illustrated  in  so  many  different 
phases  of  experience — that  they  are  easily  under- 
stood, and  have  in  them  the  universal  quality. 
The  wayfarer  need  not  stumble  if  his  heart  is  un- 
covered to  all  impressions  as  he  goes  through  the 
Book,  because  its  first  truths  lie  on  the  surface. 
They  are  a  democracy  of  response  to  universal 
need.  Read  the  Book  with  the  devotional  spirit 
and  it  kindles  and  flames  on  every  page.  The 
Bible  is  a  handbook  of  private  worship  for  the 
uncritical  reader. 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  Writing  and  the  Inward  Nature. 

Furthermore,  the  Bible,  in  a  very  profound 
sense,  is  the  world's  fundamental  document  of 
religion;  and  that  means  that  it  is  permanently 
and  vitally  related  to  all  the  world's  advances. 
And  being  in  the  form  of  written  speech,  it  be- 
comes, by  that  fact,  subject  to  all  the  conditions 
of  any  written  constitutional  document. 

For  instance,  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  it  is  necessary  not 
only  to  have  a  continuous,  but  a  growing,  under- 
standing of  it.  It  is  important,  in  the  human  law, 
to  keep  clear  the  distinction  between  the  written 
code  and  the  inward  nature  of  the  law  itself. 
Gravitation,  we  say,  acts  inversely  as  the  square 
of  the  distance.  We  make  that  proposition  easy 
sledding  to  the  boy  in  school  when  we  say  such 
is  the  mode  by  which  a  principle  acts.  Both  the 
speech  formula  and  the  rule  of  action  must  be 
distinguished  from  the  force  which  acts. 

Legal  codes,  set  in  language,  aid  the  common 
understanding  and  conduce  to  uniformity  of  ad- 
ministration. But  the  law  did  not  come  into  being 
with  the  language.  Written  law  is  like  the  plaster 
cast  of  a  living  face.  It  may  be  true  to  life,  but 
not  for  any  length  of  time.  The  living  features  are 
294 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

constantly  changing,  and  the  cast  soon  comes  to 
be  "what  they  were  then."  Written  laws  do  not 
keep  up  for  the  reason  that  any  body  of  legal 
words  enfolds  a  life.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  life  to 
expand.  Words  form  a  matrix  which  do  not 
yield  easily  to  new  conditions.  They  require  to 
be  reset. 

A  boy's  boots  do  not  yield  to  his  growing  feet. 
Written  civil  documents  may  be  felicitous  state- 
ments— they  may  be  comprehensive  of  all  legal 
needs;  but,  after  a  time,  they  become  impotent 
to  express  the  new  phases  of  things  which  the 
growing  life  of  man  calls  out.  This  is  not  new, 
and  it  might  remain  a  child's  lesson  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  grown  men  now  execute  much  po- 
litical writing  in  which  dogmas  are  expounded  as 
absolute  law. 

A  zealous  patriot  is  likely  to  think  of  the  con- 
stitution of  his  country  as  an  ultimate  political 
document.  He  makes  of  it  a  standard — a  meas- 
uring line — of  political  ideals.  He  expects  the 
constitution,  for  all  time  to  come,  to  sum  up  the 
exact  co-ordinations  of  justice  for  all  citizens  and 
between  the  citizens  and  the  institutions  of  gov- 
ernment. The  law  which  serves  men  in  their 
^advances  in  the  science  of  government  can  not  be 

295 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

nailed  down  to  the  grammatical  form  of  an  un- 
yielding code.  Language  as  an  invention  lacks  the 
fluidity.  The  supremely  difficult  problem  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  last  five  hundred  years — years 
which  have  recorded  the  swift  advance  of  nearly 
all  peoples — has  been  to  adapt  their  written  codes 
to  the  legal  necessities  which  expansion  and 
growth  always  bring  about. 

Constitutional  law  forms  are  made  purposely 
difficult  to  change;  and  for  the  reason  that  all 
writings  of  this  kind  have  been  prepared  with 
the  idea  not  only  to  express  the  broader  and  more 
secure  elements  in  the  civil  life  of  man,  but  to 
guard  them  against  the  gusts  of  popular  capri- 
ciousness. 

Primary  personal  right,  protected  even  against 
the  will  of  the  majority,  is  one  of  the  safeguards 
of  liberty  in  the  swift  growth  of  institutions.  The 
last  and  lowest  man  must  have  his  rights.  Much 
as  may  be  found  in  the  administration  of  modern 
justice  to  positively  mock  that  idea,  the*  democ- 
racies of  the  world  are  slowly  approaching  it. 
With  natural  rights  a  sudden  majority  ought  not 
to  interfere.  A  slow  process  of  constitutional 
change  is,  therefore,  usually  ordained.  And  at 
the  same  time  it  is  well  known  that  the  swiftest 
296 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

things  to  become  effete  are  the  fundamental  law 
documents  of  a  nation.  The  boy's  boots  hurt  him. 
The  English  constitution  is  not  codified  at  all, 
and  where  the  basal  understandings  are  in  no 
danger  of  confusion  it  is  probably  ideal;  which 
is  law  interpreted  in  terms  of  life  rather  than  in 
arbitrary  letters  and  words. 

Growth  of  Roman  Law. 

The  old  Roman  law,  in  its  first  form,  was  no 
more  than  a  body  of  unwritten  municipal  customs. 
These  were  well  diffused  and  accepted,  and  they 
had  about  the  full  force  of  statutory  provisions. 
A  little  further  along  the  twelve  tables  came  into 
being.  These  tables,  through  their  clearness  of 
definition,  brought  to  the  application  and  adminis- 
tration of  the  law  a  wholesome  understanding. 
But  before  a  great  length  of  time  the  normal 
action  of  legal  principles  was  hindered  by  the 
existence  of  these  twelve  tables.  They  began  to 
be  in  the  way  of  the  incorporation  of  much  law, 
which  was  demanded  by  the  growth  of  the  Roman 
civil  spirit.  These  tables  finally  became  archaic, 
and  they  were  expanded  under  processes  not  very 
dissimilar  to  the  methods  of  law  growth  at  the 
present  time.  The  Roman  custom  was  a  magis- 
297 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

trate  definition  of  the  principles  of  the  law  in  each 
case.  These  decisions,  in  special  cases,  were  pre- 
served. The  praetor  took  the  evidence,  set  it  into 
a  formula,  and  passed  it  over  to  the  judex  to  be 
preserved.  In  course  of  time  a  set  of  decisions 
was  on  hand.  Pleadings  and  court  rulings  came 
to  be  buttressed  by  the  precedents  of  the  records. 
The  law  necessities  of  the  empire  were  met  by 
this  sort  of  court  procedure.  The  Roman  citizen 
always  had  an  innate  reverence  for  the  law;  con- 
sequently the  magistrate  of  that  time  had  a  tol- 
erably free  hand.  The  beginnings  of  equity  courts 
may  be  traced  here.  The  equity  phases  of  court 
proceedings  meant  then  what  they  do  now;  that 
is,  they  imply  that  written  law  can  not  be  made 
inclusive  of  all  equity  situations.  It  is  not  fine- 
featured  enough,  and  can  not  be  made  so.  The 
elements  of  justice  applied  to  life  are  of  infinite 
detail.  This  is  why  the  judicial  sense  of  what  was 
right  became  a  legal  principle.  Under  the  im- 
mediate strain  and  balance  of  court  procedure 
some  of  the  finest  things  man  has  learned  of  civil 
justice  came  into  practical  existence.  Court  de- 
cisions now,  as  we  understand,  constitute  a  dis- 
tinct body  of  legal  principles.  The  reasons  for 
equity  procedure  accumulate  as  human  society 
298 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

becomes  more  highly  developed.  The  natural 
reason,  under  stress  of  a  case  in  hand,  voices 
often  the  purest  and  highest  law.  The  written 
law,  however,  will  always  have  two  reasons  for 
itself.  It  is  a  diffused  understanding  of  the  ac- 
cepted law;  and  it  is  a  provision  against  the  haz- 
ards of  a  corrupt  judiciary. 

The  Spirit  Nature  of  Law. 

Real  law  must  have  an  existence  before  it  can 
be  put  into  speech.  When  the  time  comes  to 
write  it  down,  and  disseminate  the  knowledge  of 
it,  its  virility  has  already  been  felt.  Efficient  law 
does  not  mean  a  sturdy  governor  or  a  first-class 
constable.  These  officers  could  not  execute  for 
long  a  misfit  statute.  They  might  chain  citizens 
to  stakes,  but  they  could  not  change  their  real 
social  needs  or  compel  administrative  monstros- 
ities. The  law  which  does  not  substantially  con- 
form to  the  inner  demands  of  the  social  life  can 
not  be  brought  to  the  sticking  point. 

Community  law  grows  out  of  the  social  need, 
which  is  always  a  question  of  interpretation  for 
legislators.  Their  business  is  to  formulate  the 
legal  necessities  of  the  people.  The  real  nature  of 
law  is  spirit — and  not  a  piece  of  writing.  If  it 
299 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

is  in  print,  it  nevertheless  has  been  evolved  under 
the  attrition  of  the  civil  fellowships.  In  a  word, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  life  of  the  race  on  this 
planet  has  an  inner  history  of  its  own,  which  cul- 
minates, from  time  to  time,  into  what  might  be 
called  the  conservative  judgments  of  men.  The 
whole  course  of  history  is  a  path  of  liberation  for 
these  matured  and  ripened  principles.  We  can 
not  give  the  movement  a  lesser  meaning,  because 
its  path  is  not  a  chaos.  The  confusions  of  its  par- 
ticulars clear  away  sooner  or  later.  Its  universals 
are  the  conservators  of  the  social  order. 

In  this  broad  way  history  is  making  itself. 
The  permanently  practical  and  indispensable  fea- 
tures of  the  law  are  a  kind  of  social  exuding  from 
the  life  of  the  unstudied  and  unreflecting  masses, 
who  usually  get  a  first  grip  on  their  value;  and 
they  are  about  the  first  to  rise  up  and  knock  at 
the  doors  of  any  enthroned  and  threatening  au- 
thority and  demand  an  accounting  of  human 
rights.  It  was  so  at  Runnymede.  It  was  so  with 
the  American  colonists.  It  was  so  with  the 
Burghers  of  South  Africa,  who  fought  and  were 
defeated;  but  they  see  now  coming  to  pass  about 
all  they  stood  for  in  the  test  of  arms. 


300 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

The  Primary  American  Law  Document. 

The  statesmen  of  the  earlier  time  of  the  Ameri- 
can Commonwealth  came  together  to  formulate 
certain  personal  and  political  rights  which  the 
War  of  the  Revolution  had  made  clear  to  them. 
The  severities  of  the  strife  had  sobered  and  made 
cool  their  heads.  They  were  to  deal  with  some 
accomplished  and  living  issues  of  free  govern- 
ment. They  knew  about  what  was  in  the  air. 
That  which  had  come  up  through  the  growth  of 
opinion,  and  which  had  been  sealed  in  the  arbit- 
rament of  war  concerning  the  spirit  of  self-con- 
trol, they  embodied  in  a  remarkably  complete, 
but  brief,  fundamental  political  document.  In 
that  piece  of  writing  they  put  the  things  for  which 
the  Anglo-Saxon  had  been  struggling  for  centuries. 
They  were  also  obliged  to  pass  over  some  issues 
which  were  not  then  historically  gestated.  It 
took  the  Civil  War  to  sharp-cut  the  question  of 
federation  and  to  quench  the  blazing  brand  of 
slavery.  The  document,  therefore,  is  remarkable 
for  what  it  does  not  contain.  Moreover,  the 
provision  made  in  the  instrument  for  its  own 
amendment  has  not  been  equal  to  the  necessities 
of  the  growing  life  of  the  Nation.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  has  been  the  way  out 
301 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

of  that  dilemma.  A  court  which  is  set  primarily 
for  the  interpretation,  and  dares  not  transcend  it, 
finds  itself  often  called  to  adjudicate  issues  for 
which  no  express  terms  are  found  in  the  constitu- 
tion. The  court,  then,  makes  its  appeal  to  the 
general  nature  of  the  document  and  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  government  which  has  come  into 
being  under  its  principles.  Our  primary  law, 
therefore,  is  expressed  in  the  primitive  document, 
plus  a  vast  accumulation  of  judicial  rulings  which 
are  of  the  same  nature  and  force.  The  law  is 
expanded  without  being  contradicted  or  judicially 
abrogated.  A  growing  State  demands  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  law  as  an  applied  and  growing  science. 
Judge  Winslow,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Michi- 
gan, says:  "The  changed  social,  economic,  and 
governmental  conditions  and  ideals  of  the  time,  as 
well  as  the  problems  which  the  changes  have  pro- 
duced, must  also  enter  into  the  consideration  of 
and  become  influential  factors  in  the  settlement 
of  problems  of  construction  and  interpretation." 

The  Growth  of  Bible  Principles. 

The  self-revelation  of  God  in  history  plainly 
has  had  to  do  with  the  expediency  of  setting  its 
spiritual  principles  into  the  mechanism  of  written 
302 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

speech,  and  the  common  rules  for  the  under- 
standing of  that  speech  must  apply  in  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Scripture  records. 

Then,  if  the  written  expressions  of  law  prin- 
ciples are  under  the  necessity  of  being  revised  and 
rewritten  occasionally,  because  of  the  incapacity 
of  language  to  furnish  an  adequate  fluid  body  for 
their  growth,  why  have  not  the  Scriptures,  in  the 
growth  of  the  religious  life  of  the  world,  been 
compelled  to  a  rewriting  long  ago?  The  answer 
is  apparent.  Constitutions  and  statutes  are  docu- 
mentary. They  are  dogmatic.  They  take  on 
themselves  the  nature  of  a  creed.  The  Scriptures 
are  not  documentary.  They  are  not  dogmatic. 
Doctrines  and  morals  are  not  systematized  there. 
They  are  as  fresh  and  vital  to-day  as  when  they 
were  first  written,  because  they  have  been  cos- 
mically  derived.  The  divine  revelation  has  been 
set  into  a  life  stream  of  history.  And  the  stream 
is  broad  enough  and  long  enough  to  have  included 
in  its  currents  every  conceivable  small  detail  of 
human  experience  and  all  the  broad  conditions 
upon  which  a  nation  lives  or  dies.  Several  thou- 
sand years  of  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  successes 
and  defeats,  the  virtues  and  sins  of  a  representative 
people  have  been  used  to  show  the  will  of  God 
303 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

in  all  actual  situations.  The  Scriptures  make  up 
a  book  of  the  human  life  with  God  in  it;  and  they 
will  not  go  out  of  date  until  human  nature  changes 
and  until  the  divine  manifestation  contradicts 
itself.  They  are  more  comprehensive  than  we 
know. 

But  if  the  written  revelation,  as  we  have  it, 
was  an  unfolding  plan — if  it  was  as  a  light  break- 
ing in  on  the  world  by  degrees — may  not  the 
growth  of  the  world  since  the  time  of  Christ  have 
enriched  some  of  its  meanings? 

The  fundamental  religious  elements  are  all  in 
the  Book,  and  at  the  same  time  the  modern  dis- 
ciple may  have  a  greater  Book  than  the  early 
Christian.  The  heavens  mean  more  to  an  as- 
tronomer than  to  a  child. 

There  is  a  traditional  view  of  the  sacred  records 
which  nails  them  down.  It  makes  no  provision 
for  any  accumulation  of  religious  knowledge  since 
they  were  written.  It  assumes  that  God  finished 
His  revelation  of  Himself  with  them.  The  fact  is, 
we  have  come  into  possession  of  very  much  re- 
ligious knowledge  since  the  time  of  Paul,  and  it 
has  been  read  into  the  Book  by  a  just  interpreta- 
tion and  incorporated  into  the  practical  life  of  the 
world.  The  revelation  was  made  up  and  em- 
304 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

bodied  in  history  to  the  intent  that  it  should  live 
in  history.  If  the  records  did  not  make  room  for 
growth  they  would  not  be  what  they  purport  to 
be.  They  would  deny  for  the  world's  life  ahead 
what  they  are  in  themselves. 

It  appears  trite  to  say  the  world  grows,  but 
the  statement  that  the  religious  life  is  creative, 
and  in  constant  process  of  evolution,  is  questioned 
by  many  good  people.  Certainly  the  revealing 
truths  are  intensified  by  the  new  phases  of  his- 
tory and  by  the  new  increments  of  knowledge 
which  each  succeeding  age  brings  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  sum  total  of  what  is  known  of  God  and 
human  obligation.  Scripture  meanings  are  inten- 
sified by  what  they  have  brought  about.  They 
have  the  prophetic  vision.  They  make  room  for 
the  culminants  of  knowledge.  Christianity  af- 
firms a  self -revealing  God,  but  not  a  finality  in  the 
revealing  medium.  The  closed  canon  was  not  a 
shut-down.  The  cosmic  derivation  of  the  Scripture 
records  is,  in  itself,  an  endorsement  of  the  right 
of  the  world  to  be  open-eyed  and  open-minded  to 
all  impressions  of  the  divine  in  nature  and  life  and 
history.  The  records  can  never  become  untrue, 
because  they  are  life;  but  they  take  up  into  them- 
selves, by  the  logic  of  their  own  method,  all  the 

20  305 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

broader  acquisitions  of  the  race  since  the  time 
they  were  transcripted.  A  revelation  of  the  revela- 
tion itself  is  now,  and  is  always,  taking  place. 

The  social  and  civil  conditions  of  the  Scrip- 
ture times  have  passed  away.  The  Jewish  cere- 
monial is  dead.  The  Levite  code  has  no  applica- 
tion anywhere.  The  patriarchal  life  and  its  modes 
of  thought,  as  we  have  them  given  in  Genesis, 
are  not  known  anywhere  on  the  earth.  The  great 
Teacher  called  the  people  about  Him  in  the  by- 
ways and  open  spaces  to  listen  to  His  words, 
which  they  comprehended  only  with  darkened  un- 
derstandings. Revelation  certainly  did  not  com- 
plete itself  in  these  hearers.  A  religious  cata- 
clysm was  not  ordained  to  be  closed  with  them. 
The  proposition  that  all  possible  and  final  mes- 
sages of  religious  truth  to  this  world  culminated 
and  completed  themselves  through  a  small  num- 
ber of  people  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago 
is  absurd.  They  comprehended  only  parts  of  the 
Christ  message,  which  had  in  it  then  the  prin- 
ciples of  all  progress,  some  applications  of  which 
were  in  reserve  because  the  conditions  were  not 
there  to  call  them  out.  Life  now  is  more  com- 
plex— more  advanced  and  mandatory  of  higher 
experiences  and  stronger  obligations — hence  the 
306 


PROGRESSIVE  INTERPRETATIONS. 

revealing  records  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light 
of  the  larger  range  of  subjects  and  interests  with 
which  the  human  mind  has  come  into  positive  and 
permanent  correspondence. 

The  Scripture  content  is  a  growing  content. 
It  is  a  well  of  water  fed  by  ceaseless  currents. 
Fresh  religious  values  are  being  sent  to  men 
through  the  records  all  the  time.  What  fatuous 
blunders  of  Church  councils  through  the  ages  at- 
tempting to  fix  things  by  decrees  which  declare 
just  what  the  Scriptures  mean,  so  much  and  no 
more,  and  the  future  fastened  down.  Decretals 
of  the  Church  can  no  more  fix  and  limit  the  divine 
revealing  than  they  can  stop  the  advance  of  the 
sciences.  The  inbreakings  of  research  throw  new 
light  on  the  ancient  revealing.  One  of  the  cease- 
less fascinations  of  the  Word  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  old  truths,  with  which  we  are  familiar,  like 
diamonds  well-cut,  show  facets  for  a  new  glint  of 
light  from  any  direction.  Would  a  student  of 
science  undertake  to  fix  and  limit  the  application 
of  any  physical  principle?  He  may  write  out  the 
law  of  it,  but  he  turns  it  loose.  He  knows  that 
the  principle  itself  is  always  strengthened  by  its 
related  understandings.  The  human  mind  is  not 
^permitted  to  play  hide-and-seek  with  any  quality 

307 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

of  truth  which  may  break  in  on  it  from  the  out- 
standing universe.  The  assured  results  of  science 
are  as  clearly  a  revelation  of  God  as  anything 
found  at  first  hand  in  the  Scriptures.  Indeed, 
the  Scriptures  provide  for  the  appropriation  of 
their  religious  values  when  the  spirit  of  the  Word 
is  declared  to  be  a  leader  into  all  truth.  Then  is 
natural  truth,  so  called,  and  the  wisdom  which 
comes  of  common  experience  of  equal  and  bind- 
ing force  with  the  plain  first  teaching  of  the  Scrip- 
ture message?  Why  not?  We  are  obliged  to 
obey  the  nature  of  natural  law;  and  if  it  has  an 
ethic  and  a  devotional  voice,  these  are  also  bind- 
ing. "The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God, 
and  the  firmanent  showeth  His  handiwork;  day 
unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night 
showeth  knowledge." 


108 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

Institutional  Defects. 

MAN  has  not  yet  learned  the  fine  art  of  creat- 
ing an  organization  which  is  perfectly  self-adapt- 
able. The  institutional  feature  of  any  set  of 
principles,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  is  a  kind  of 
unyielding  matrix,  needing  constant  attention. 
Men  combine  themselves  in  collective  under- 
standings to  foster  and  carry  forward  any  interest 
they  may  think  worthy  of  their  mutual  efforts, 
and  they  find  that  the  methods  they  employ  are 
easy  to  get  at  outs  with  the  spirit  of  their  enter- 
prise. This  is  especially  so  in  any  time  of  swift 
transition,  when  the  old  and  the  new  are  brought, 
often,  into  disagreeably  sharp  contrasts.  In  the 
family  life  it  is  the  direct  attrition  between  youth 
and  old  age.  In  the  social  body  it  is  the  con- 
servatism which  is  slow  to  yield  to  progressive 
policies.  In  the  law  its  enactments  become  effete 
before  they  can  get  themselves  off  the  statute 
books. 

309 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

The  life  of  nature  does  better  with  its  organ- 
isms, because  it  puts  on  the  inside  the  principle 
which  works  outwardly  towards  the  renewals  and 
transformations  which  are  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  a  new  day.  This  dullard  of  a  human  is  in- 
clined to  neglect  his  social  mechanisms  and  let 
them  cramp  the  life  out  of  that  for  which  they 
stand.  He  really  can  not  put  into  them  the  fluid 
principle  which  nature  does.  No  sooner  is  any 
cause  taken  to  heart  by  any  number  of  people, 
and  they  put  themselves  together  to  promote  it, 
and  have  success  with  it,  than  the  need  arises  to 
consider  the  betterment  of  the  means  they  have 
employed.  Guilds,  clubs,  orders,  schools,  chari- 
ties, Churches — if  they  answer  the  ends  for  which 
they  were  begun,  must  pay  the  price  of  a  struggle 
against  opposition  somewhere,  or  they  must  be- 
ware of  worn-out  methods,  or  they  must  have 
some  trouble  with  the  gate-keepers  who,  as  soon 
as  they  reach  a  snug  place,  begin  to  warn  folks 
not  to  touch  the  ark. 

But  institutional  defects  are  often  overmag- 
nified.  You  can  wear  your  out-of-style  hat,  com- 
fortably, a  while  after  it  really  needs  attention. 
Your  grandmother  is  out-of-date;  and  yet  it  is 
usually  best  to  let  her  alone.  Her  age  has  an 
310 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

evaluation  on  its  own  account.  It  is  easier  to 
show  the  defects  of  a  method  than  to  actualize  a 
better  way.  That  explains  the  professional  critic. 
It  is  not  always  wise  to  be  changing  what  is  for 
the  newest  thing  offered.  Social  forms,  as  they 
exist,  may  not  fully  express  the  life  of  things,  and 
at  the  same  time  wholesale  denunciation  is  not 
justified.  The  modern  theater,  for  instance,  is  a 
response  to  the  public  demand  for  amusement. 
It  has  many  objectionable  features.  It  needs 
municipal  attention.  But  the  modern  playhouse 
will  not  be  brought  up  to  what  it  ought  to  be  by 
the  easy  ways  which  the  average  reformer  pro- 
poses. Five  hundred  young  men  in  a  low  theater 
means  five  hundred  unclean  minds.  The  real 
tragedy  there  is  a  fact  of  the  social  consciousness; 
and  that  only  yields  to  the  inbuilding  of  other 
social  and  personal  ideals. 

The  Church. 

The  Church  is  an  organized  expression  of 
Christian  principles.  It  aims  to  conserve  the  re- 
ligious forces  of  society.  It  economizes  effort.  It 
makes  possible  by  united  action  that  which  could 
not  otherwise  be  done.  It  has  no  special  sacred 
character.  It  has  no  end  in  itself.  The  reasons 
311 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

for  it  are  the  reasons  for  getting  the  religious  mes- 
sage out  among  men.  Its  object  is  Christian 
character.  It  gets  men  and  women  together  to 
work  on  absolute  values.  It  deals  with  serious, 
worthy,  and  adequate  truths.  It  shuts  itself  up 
to  the  great  questions  of  joy,  sorrow,  life,  death, 
time,  probation,  destiny.  It  stands  for  clean 
things  and  high  ideals.  It  builds  about  a  great 
Book.  It  provides  in  a  vast  way  for  the  public 
assembly.  Houses  built  for  this  purpose  and  for 
religious  teaching  in  them  ornament  all  our  cities 
and  countrysides.  The  common  sense  way  of  it 
for  the  provision  of  community  needs  could  hardly 
be  improved  upon.  The  money  for  the  whole  of 
it  has  been  a  free  offering  in  America. 

And  in  these  buildings  has  been  kept  at  work 
the  most  persistent  teacher  of  the  ages.  He  is 
not  always  eloquent  or  learned.  Occasionally  he 
is  a  fanatic,  or  he  is  not  an  admirable  man,  or  he 
is  a  functionary,  giving  offense  to  a  living  mes- 
sage; but  when  the  worst  is  said,  his  ranks  con- 
tain a  host  of  the  clean  and  capable.  There  is  no 
social  substitute  for  the  modern  preacher.  Peda- 
gogically  his  method  has  never  been,  and  never 
will  be,  superseded.  The  living  man  before  the 
living  people,  face  to  face,  is  the  most  effective 
312 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

way  for  instruction  and  appeal.  This  man  of 
pluck  and  poverty  is  everlastingly  at  the  one 
business  of  calling  men  and  women  to  consider  the 
way  of  life. 

Besides  this,  the  modern  Church  is  behind  a 
tremendous  missionary  propaganda  which  has  gone 
beyond  its  experimental  stage;  and  its  broad  and 
statesmanlike  policies  have  made  the  Christian 
civilization  sure  to  cover  the  face  of  the  earth  for 
the  future. 

The  Crisis. 

But  now,  in  this  Church  of  the  home  land — 
where  its  greatest  victories  have  been  achieved; 
where  the  highest  results  of  equipment  and  method 
have  been  secured;  where  the  discipleship  rep- 
resents a  character  never  before  equaled  in  the 
annals  of  the  Church — we  are  compelled  to  con- 
front the  most  perplexing  situation  the  Church 
ever  had  to  consider.  As  tendencies  now  go,  in 
another  ten  years  the  Church  in  America  will  be 
brought  to  a  standstill  in  its  membership.  With- 
out question,  a  crisis  has  been  reached.  It  is 
supreme  folly  to  try  to  cover  up  a  fact.  The 
masses  are  not  being  reached,  and  the  Churches 
are  becoming  empty.  We  knock  with  fists  of 
313 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

flesh  against  granite  walls.  Neither  is  it  a  case  of 
slow  sailing  through  quiet  waters.  It  is  not  a  dip 
in  the  rhythm  of  advance  for  this  generation. 
Only  a  few  of  the  tender-minded  and  devout  are 
expecting,  like  Jonah's  gourd,  a  great  new  growth 
in  a  night.  The  hard-handed,  who  have  been 
under  the  burdens  and  have  not  flinched,  and  who 
see  the  signs  of  the  times,  have  not  a  particle  of 
expectation  of  breaking  the  social  incrustation 
and  of  reaching  the  fabled  last  man  with  the 
gospel. 

The  defects  of  the  organization  are  palpable 
enough;  but  they  are  of  secondary  significance. 
Defects  of  method  get  out  of  the  way  when  there 
is  anything  doing.  Forty  of  the  king's  horses 
could  not  catch  the  man  who  makes  the  state- 
ment that  the  Church  is  not  doing  its  work;  never- 
theless, the  Church  has  come  to  a  state  of  paralysis 
which  threatens  to  push  the  prayer  of  every 
Christian  into  a  wail. 

The  Church  has  had  taken  from  it,  unwit- 
tingly, but  none  the  less  surely,  its  rightful  oppor- 
tunity of  effective  appeal  to  the  American  intel- 
lect 


314 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

The  American  Theory  of  Church  and  State. 

Such  a  radical  statement  means  a  challenge 
to  make  it  good.  It  will  be  necessary,  first,  to 
consider  in  brief  the  historical  situation.  In- 
telligent people  are  familiar  with  the  theory  of 
the  government  which  ordains  the  complete  sepa- 
ration of  the  two  classes  of  institutions  which  ex- 
press respectively  man's  social  and  his  religious 
instincts.  We  have  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State. 
We  are  strangers  to  the  asperities  of  the  State- 
Church  conditions  of  Europe.  We  have  escaped 
the  older  ecclesiastical  dominations.  It  is  under- 
stood that  republican  government  and  religion 
are  not  enemies.  The  government  is  secular,  but 
not  irreligious — simply  absurdly  silent.  The  civil 
and  religious  elements  in  this  country  have  been 
so  persistent  and  tireless  in  swearing  the  fealties 
of  good  will  towards  each  other  that  the  sus- 
picions of  some  have  been  awakened.  The  dip- 
lomatic politeness  is  a  little  strained.  The  situation 
is  one  of  superficial  harmony  and  fundamental 
misunderstanding. 

Latin  and  Medieval  Mai-Adjustments. 

The  early  Christian  Churches  were  pure  de- 
mocracies.    They  were  self-governing  local  units. 
The  religious  bond   among  the  disciples  was  so 
315 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

strong  that  it  largely  shaped  their  domestic  and 
economic  affairs.  They  had  no  political  outlook. 
Their  notion  of  government  was  the  common  one 
— a  power  somewhere  from  above  dropped  down, 
and  with  which  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  bend 
their  necks.  Among  themselves  they  had  all 
things  in  common  for  a  time.  Their  formal  Church 
regulations  were  few  and  simple.  The  beginning 
forms  of  their  faith  were  at  first  very  secretive. 
They  were  possessed  of  that  new,  strange  life 
which  had  completed  itself  in  the  Christ,  and 
they  went  with  it  out  and  down  to  the  poorest 
of  the  poor  and  saw  them  transformed.  It  spread 
like  wildfire.  It  was  tremendously  constructive. 
For  a  long  time  the  world  did  not  understand  it — 
became  alarmed  at  its  successes  and  tried  to 
stamp  it  out.  The  persecutions  were  a  failure 
because  Christians  were  born  into  the  Kingdom 
faster  than  they  could  be  killed.  The  evil  day 
approached  when  the  organization  of  the  Church 
took  the  place  of  its  life.  Slowly  the  earnest 
evangel  of  the  earlier  day  was  transformed  into 
the  domineering  priest. 

It  could  be  proven  by  the  Scriptures  that  the 
Church,  rightfully,  had  civil  ascendancy.    If  Christ 
is  King,  why  should  not  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
316 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

be  subject  to  Him  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  to 
the  Church  to  which  He  had  delivered  the  keys? 
Constantine  was  persuaded  by  that  fatuous  logic; 
and  he  made  the  offer,  and  it  was  accepted.  An 
era  of  outward  splendor  followed.  Mutual  ad- 
vantages appeared  at  first  in  the  coalition.  Vast 
cathedrals  were  built.  Prebendaries  were  made 
rich  with  endowment.  The  fascination  of  the 
new  theocracy  was  complete.  The  lure  of  the 
secular  power  crept  into  the  Church  and  made  a 
great  outward  show.  There  was  no  break  in  the 
logic  of  the  situation  which,  to  this  day,  struggles 
for  the  old  assertion.  The  organization  became 
an  end  in  itself.  The  simple  message  of  the  Christ 
to  the  human  heart  and  life  lost  out,  and  it  took 
the  Church  a  thousand  years  to  build  for  itself 
the  charnal  house  of  the  Dark  Ages. 

State  Churches. 

With  the  dawn  of  learning  on  this  side  of  the 
medieval  time,  and  with  the  struggle  of  the  human 
spirit  to  regain  for  itself  the  vitalities  of  religion, 
Martin  Luther  begins  his  work.  He  was  the 
herald  of  a  revolt  and  a  new  day.  But  he  was 
only  one  factor.  Multitudes  of  tendencies  con- 
spired  to  help  on  the  Reformation.  The  German 
317 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

princes,  one  after  another,  broke  away  from  the 
pope,  who  was  then  the  federal  representative  of 
a  fearful  moral  despotism.  The  authority  to  rule 
recrystallized  in  social  institutions.  But  religion, 
seen  to  be  a  necessity,  was  taken  under  the  pro- 
tection and  nurture  of  the  State.  The  outcome  of 
that  idea  is  the  State-Church  arrangements  of 
European  countries.  The  divine  right  of  the 
pope  was  self-transferred  to  the  divine  right  of 
kings — an  error  which  is  yet  held  by  a  few  crowned 
heads. 

Protestant  Sects. 

The  idea  of  infallibility,  invested  somewhere, 
appeared  to  be  a  necessity  for  the  common  mind 
of  that  early  reformative  time.  It  was  an  idea  to 
conjure  with  by  all  hands.  The  pope  claimed  it, 
the  king  claimed  it,  and  Martin  Luther  was  equal 
to  the  occasion  when  he  proclaimed  the  infallibly 
dictated  Word.  He  put  an  error  over  against  a 
fetich.  It  had  for  him  at  least  the  pragmatic 
sanctions.  He  whipped  the  Reformation  wagon 
through  on  that  basis.  But  he  did  not  see  the 
absurdity  of  a  divine  and  infallible  dictation  set 
into  a  fallible  language.  He  did  more  than  he 
knew.  He  made  the  individual  mind  a  free  force 
318 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

in  questions  of  belief,  and  set  it  to  read  and  inter- 
pret an  infallibly  dictated  Book.  That  new  in- 
tellectual situation  produced  the  Protestant  sects. 
They  grew  in  numbers  to  three  or  four  hundred, 
each  one  proclaiming  itself  the  old  blue  hen's 
chicken — each  one  teaching  "the  Word  of  God 
says  this" — with  the  anathema  against  all  her- 
etics. We  are  now,  in  America,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
passing  through  the  last  forms  of  that  confusion 
of  tongues.  It  has  made  of  Protestantism  a  "rope 
of  sand."  Nevertheless,  these  zealous  believers, 
in  their  struggles  over  prepositions  and  adverbs, 
have  yet  held  in  common  the  primary  meanings  of 
the  Word,  and  have  kept  among  themselves  the 
spirit  of  true  devotion.  They  have  stood  un- 
brokenly  for  an  austere  morality.  They  have 
been  free  from  the  old  penances  and  shrivings  and 
absolutions.  The  unitary  elements  of  religion 
have  expressed  themselves  to  the  modern  world 
through  these  distinct  bodies  because  they  were 
all  sincere  teachers. 

An  Establishment. 

In  the  midst  of  this  new  religious  ferment, 
the  American  Nation  was  born.  The  Revolution 
^accomplishes  its  purpose,  and  the  colonial  patriots 

319 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

set  about  to  put  in  form  the  organic  law  of  a 
free  people.  They  determined  to  appropriate  to 
themselves  all  that  man  had  then  learned  of 
liberty  and  progress.  They  intended  also  to 
shun  the  breakers  of  history.  The  old  ecclesias- 
tical tyranny  loomed  like  a  monster  across  the 
sea.  The  young  Republic  must  be  guarded 
against  that  forever.  Permission  to  carve  the 
Nation's  destiny  must  not  come  from  Europe  in 
the  mail  bags.  Then  the  sects  were  here,  each 
with  an  insistent  voice  of  its  own.  How  can  the 
young  Republic  take  action  on  the  religious  ques- 
tion without  vast  confusion,  especially  since  the 
Jamestown  type  of  colonies  were  sent  over  here 
with  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  written  in 
their  charters.  The  Constitution  makers  were 
afraid  to  touch  it,  because  the  loose  confederation 
would  probably  not  have  stood  that  issue  if  it 
were  put  in  with  the  first  draft  to  be  adopted. 
The  document,  as  they  first  accepted  it,  is  a 
supreme  historical  precipitation,  and  yet  it  left 
the  religious  question  undecided.  They  certainly 
knew  it  to  be  vital,  but  they  were  not  unac- 
quainted with  the  untoward  strifes  which  grew  out 
of  the  long-time  institutional  maladjustments  of 
the  instincts  of  society  and  religion.  The  founders 
320 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

of  the  Government  waited  until  the  federation 
was  centralized  by  the  adoption  of  the  organic 
law,  and  then  they  set  about  to  protect  the  young 
life  of  the  Nation  from  the  unseemly  strifes  of 
Old  World  history. 

They  did  it  in  the  first  amendment — "  Congress 
shall  make  no  law  respecting  the  establishment 
of  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 
It  was  at  the  time  a  justifiable  line  of  least  re- 
sistance. It  was  born  of  a  wholesome  fear  of  the 
old  ecclesiastical  tyrannies.  It  aimed  to  put  an 
end  to  the  State-Church  conditions  of  some  of 
the  colonies.  It  aimed  to  relieve  the  civil  ad- 
ministration of  possible  complications  with  Prot- 
estant expressions  of  the  Christian  life.  The 
threefold  purpose  was  accomplished  by  declar- 
ing against  an  establishment.  The  Constitution 
plainly  makes  a  distinction  between  an  estab- 
lishment and  religion  itself.  The  American  spirit 
in  the  application  of  the  principle  of  law  makes 
no  distinction.  It  says  to  the  establishment,  "We 
will  neither  help  nor  hinder  you — take  your  piece 
of  human  nature  and  go  with  it.  The  prohibitory 
feature  of  the  Constitution  is  a  provision  of  politi- 
cal expediency,  and  it  has  been  wisely  taken.  It 
i*  means  for  the  establishment  to  keep  its  hands  off 
21  321 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  political  administration  and,  as  such,  to  stay 
out  of  politics.  The  American  spirit  resents  both, 
and  rightfully.  The  point  is  not  there.  It  is  with 
an  instinct  which  has  nine  lives,  and  seldom  dies 
alone;  which  may  be  brought  to  silence,  but  not 
until  it  has  produced  an  abhorrent  thing. 

The  Essentials  of  Civilization. 

A  true  civilization  must,  of  necessity,  recog- 
nize certain  primary  elements  of  human  nature 
and  build  on  them,  with  the  understanding  that 
they  are  mutually  related  and  inseparable. 

1.  It  must  deal  with  the  sexual  instinct  which 
builds  the  institution  of  the  family. 

2.  It  must  deal  with  the  natural  thirst  for 
knowledge,  which  brings  about  educational  insti- 
tutions. 

3.  It  must  deal  with  the  social  instinct,  which 
expresses  itself  in  civil  society. 

4.  It  must  deal  with  the  instinct  of  worship, 
which  in  its  institutions  designs  a  provision  for 
the  responses  in  the  human  spirit  to  the  nature 
of  the  universe  and  to  God. 

There  is  not  anywhere  a  feature  of  civilization 
but  may  be  arranged  under  some  one  of  these  four 
heads.     And  human  happiness  depends  on  their 
322 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

normal  and  co-ordinate  development.  There  is  no 
true  progress  with  any  one  of  these  personal 
elements  left  out.  The  institutions  called  out  by 
each  must  support  and  build  the  others.  "The 
eye  can  not  say  unto  the  hand,  'I  have  no  need  of 
thee.'  " 

The  Unfair  Situation. 

Social  institutions  at  the  present  time  have 
grown  to  be  a  sort  of  big  brother;  but  only  so 
because,  in  the  evolution  of  the  world's  life,  he  has 
come  to  represent  in  some  measure  a  federation 
of  understandings.  He  has  .  no  other  superior 
parts.  Social  institutions  have  never  been  more 
significant  than  religious  institutions.  The  first 
customs  of  the  world  were  religious.  The  first 
ceremonials  of  the  world  were  religious.  The 
first  art  and  the  first  music  were  religious.  The 
hoariest  monuments  of  the  ages  are  religious. 
The  first  literature  of  the  world  was  religious. 
The  first  laws  of  the  world  were  religious.  The 
first  governments  of  the  world  were  religious. 

Neither  are  social  institutions  superior  to  the 

family.     The  first  unit  of  society  is  the  family. 

All  social  aggregates  recognize  the  fact  and  are 

loyal  to  it.     The  statutes  of  all  civilized  peoples 

323 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

bulk  large  in  provision  for  the  family  institution. 
With  the  utmost  formal  directness,  the  State 
goes  about  to  make  the  sexual  instinct  express 
itself  in  the  one  man  united  to  the  one  woman  in 
marriage,  and  it  provides  for  the  economies  and 
the  fidelities  of  that  union. 

The  instinct  of  knowledge  is  known  to  be  one 
of  the  springs  of  social  progress.  Popular  educa- 
tion has,  therefore,  come  to  be  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  any  well-ordered  civil  life.  The 
statutes  of  all  the  States  provide  for  and  per- 
petuate schools  of  learning  of  the  highest  type; 
and  thus  the  State  gives  positive  endorsement 
and  assistance  to  the  finest  grades  of  scholarship. 
The  State  does  its  best  for  the  family  in  self- 
protection.  Each  family  unit  has  in  it  the  ele- 
ments of  all  government,  and  the  child,  learning 
obedience  to  rightful  authority  there,  takes  that 
obedience  into  the  broader  duties  of  citizenship. 
It  has  the  greatest  care  about  education  for  the 
same  reason.  Among  a  self-governing  people  an 
intelligent  electorate  is  essential.  Ignorance  is 
danger.  And  where  government  becomes  complex, 
scholarship  is  necessary. 

But  the  religious  instinct,  on  the  part  of  the 
State,  is  generously  permitted  to  set  up  shop  for 
324 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

itself.  It  is  simply  not  hindered.  The  Constitu- 
tion forbids  the  recognition  of  the  establishment 
of  religion,  which  is  very  well,  but  not  very  brave 
at  the  present  day  because  the  old  ecclesiastical 
tyranny  is  as  dead  as  the  dodo,  and  sectarianism 
is  on  its  last  pegs.  The  American  civil  spirit  nega- 
tives the  instinct  of  religion  itself. 

The  public  schools  are  not  godless  in  the 
blunt  actual  sense  of  that  term,  because  the  teach- 
ing force  in  them  until  this  time  has  represented 
a  very  high  type  of  character.  Very  many  of  these 
teachers  are  devoutly  religious.  The  schools  are 
godless  in  the  civil  sense  and  in  a  sense  the  Con- 
stitution never  intended.  The  whole  logic  of  the 
civil  neutrality  is  to  cultivate  indifference  to  the 
primary  religious  values  of  the  child  life.  The 
emphasis  is  placed  on  intellectual  equipment.  The 
theory  of  education  is  to  rifle  the  brain  and  give 
it  self-mastery.  Ethical  and  spiritual  values  are 
incidental.  A  discreet  silence  is  maintained 
towards  all  the  healthful  responses  of  the  child 
heart  to  the  call  of  the  divine.  And  this,  when  it 
is  known  that  the  life  and  health  of  human  society 
depends  as  much  upon  goodness  as  upon  knowl- 
edge. And  goodness  finds  its  authority  and 
.  strength  in  religion. 

325 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

Beaulieu,  the  French  statistician,  attributes  the 
fearful  decline  in  the  birth  rate  of  France  to  the 
immorality  of  the  family  life,  which  has  come 
about  through  the  absence  of  religious  conviction. 
He  asserts  that  the  responsibility  lies  with  the 
statesmen,  who  have  almost  from  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  made  war  on  the  religious  instincts 
of  the  French  people.  The  attempt  was  made 
to  build  a  democracy  divorced  from  faith,  and 
the  result  is  a  mutilated  national  life.  Religion  is 
the  premier  support  to  the  social  force,  and  always 
will  be,  because,  as  Huxley  says,  it  is  the  basis 
of  the  moral  life  of  the  world.  It  takes  religion 
to  make  morality  strong  enough  to  secure  order 
among  a  self-governing  people. 

There  is  now  a  widespread  and  growing  dissat- 
isfaction with  the  values  which  come  to  society 
from  the  public  schools.  It  has  been  charged  to 
impractical  methods,  to  inefficient  teaching,  to  the 
lack  of  industrial  training,  to  partisan  adminis- 
tration, and  strangely  of  late  to  ignorance  of 
the  child  nature.  The  fact  is,  the  public  schools 
have  never  been  set  to  the  task  of  taking  an  all- 
round  interest  in  human  nature.  The  work  done 
is  radically  one-sided.  As  drill-rooms  for  the 
intellect  the  schools  are  fine.  But  an  educated 
326 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

intellect  is  not  an  educated  man.  The  school  can 
not  take  its  piece  and  run.  The  family  instincts 
and  the  religious  inclinations  are  not  normally 
co-ordinated  with  intellectual  training.  Modern 
biology  has  made  possible  the  education  of  the 
sex  impulsion  and,  therefore,  the  cure  of  a  can- 
cerous rot  in  the  human  life.  Delicate  subject? — 
nonsense.  There  is  nothing  quite  so  clean  or  quite 
so  pure  or  so  near  the  divine  as  the  procreative 
provisions  of  nature.  Catholic  centers  of  author- 
ity have  seen  this  educational  absurdity  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Nation's  history  and  have  strug- 
gled against  it.  When  they  go  about  educating 
their  children  under  religious  auspices  they  give 
justifiable  emphasis  to  the  cosmic  fact  that  a 
child's  education  is  not  complete  with  the  domes- 
tic and  moral  estimates  left  out. 

But  now,  what  has  come  of  such  discrimina- 
tion? What  has  the  organized  religious  life  of 
America  to  show  for  itself?  It  has  undertaken, 
unaided,  to  sustain  the  principle  of  religion.  The 
self-support  of  religion  and  the  free  course  of  it 
are  both  acceptable  to  the  organization  itself.  All 
the  tendencies  towards  a  State  supervision  of  re- 
ligious interests  in  this  country  have  been  suc- 
cessfully resisted.  The  prevention  of  an  estab- 
327 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

lishment  by  the  organic  law  has  not  hindered  the 
success  of  the  Church.  Side  by  side  with  the 
civil  life  religious  institutions  have  grown  and  have 
had  their  greatest  triumphs. 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  bonds  of  human 
society  have  been  mightily  strengthened  by  the 
Churches.  They  are  everywhere  to  exhort  and 
admonish  to  the  highest  ideals  of  life.  Their 
effort  is  ceaselesss  to  make  good  citizens  out  of 
bad  ones.  The  Church  openly  proclaims  itself  in 
harmony  with  the  civil  administrations.  Every 
pulpit  declares  for  the  making  and  execution  of 
laws  for  the  protection  and  nurture  of  childhood 
and  the  home  and  the  personal  life  and  the  morals 
of  the  community.  It  puts  itself  like  flint  against 
encysted  social  evils  and  makes  the  age-long 
struggle  so  often  necessary  to  overcome  social 
evil.  It  is  known  also  that  religious  institutions 
strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  family  life.  They 
make  sturdy  contention  for  the  household  moral- 
ities and  for  the  sacredness  of  the  marriage  cov- 
enant. They  were  frontiersmen  in  the  work  of 
higher  education;  and  they  are  now  placing  mil- 
lions annually  to  that  kind  of  disinterested  use. 

The  Churches  have  stood  for  the  family  life 
and  the  school  and  the  civil  authority — openly, 
328 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

formally,  positively,  aggressively.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  family  life,  by  its  nature  fitted  to  train 
the  religious  instincts  of  childhood  and  give  to 
the  Churches  its  mighty  moral  leverages,  to  say 
the  least,  has  become  vastly  indifferent  to  re- 
ligion. And  the  failure  is  at  the  vital  point  where 
the  child  ought  to  get  the  divine  motives  for  its 
moral  life. 

So,  also,  the  logic  of  negation  and  silence  in 
the  public  schools  is  agnostic.  And  the  limit  of 
good  form  for  our  big  brother,  the  State,  is  to 
offer  the  patronage  of  his  good  will.  In  the  first 
few  decades  of  the  Nation's  life  the  ill  effects  of 
this  institutional  maladjustment  were  not  se- 
verely felt.  The  Churches  until  now  have  been 
able  to  hold  the  day  against  these  adverse  winds 
of  discrimination.  But  at  last,  In  the  perplexi- 
ties of  the  unbalanced  adjustments  of  the  cosmic 
co-ordinations  of  the  personal  life,  the  Churches 
have  come  to  a  halt.  They  are  not  doing  their 
former  work.  It  becomes  everybody  to  withhold 
criticism,  because  the  situation  is  not  a  fair  one. 
The  Churches  in  America  now  have  a  right  to 
demand  from  other  institutions  a  return  for  the 
values  they  have  received  from  the  Church. 

It  is  tremendously  important  that  school  ad- 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

ministrations  come  quickly  to  some  understanding 
about  what  they  are  going  to  do  with  the  spir- 
itual apprehensions  of  childhood.  The  unspoiled 
mind  of  the  child  has  for  its  first  right  all-round- 
edness  of  training.  To  rob  it  of  that  right  know- 
ingly, is  a  species  of  highwayry. 

The  immanence  of  the  divine  is  the  latest 
dogma  of  science  anyway.  When  the  natural  re- 
sponses of  youth  are  given  leeway  to  the  Divine 
immanence  during  the  school  days,  the  ground- 
work of  the  higher  elements  of  Christian  thought, 
experience,  and  practice  will  be  laid — and  the 
State  will  then  have  given  endorsement  to  religion 
itself — and  no  movement  will  have  been  made 
towards  an  establishment.  Ten  to  eighteen  years 
of  school  drill  and  ten  to  eighteen  years  of  silence 
about  a  cosmic  instinct  puts  the  youthful  mind 
in  a  state  of  indifference  to  religious  issues.  It 
considers  them  academic — or  purely  questions  of 
preference  and  sentiment.  The  first  result  of 
such  a  policy  is  to  take  from  the  Church  its  rightful 
power  of  approach  to  the  school-trained  mind; 
but  the  full  pathos  of  the  situation  is  in  the  fact 
that  when  the  educated  thought  of  this  country 
has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  religious 
life  is  of  no  value  to  itself,  it  has  come  to  madness ! 
330 


A  COSMIC  ABSURDITY. 

A  godless  nation  can  not  endure!  The  citizenship 
of  a  free  country  must  not  only  be  capable  and 
discriminating  in  economic  and  political  questions, 
but  about  ethical  and  spiritual  values.  If  the 
average  voter  is  not  fond  of  life's  high  meanings 
there  can  be  only  one  result. 

The  Churches  have  now  come  to  a  halt  against 
the  adverse  currents.  It  is  unreasonable  to  expect 
them  to  make  headway  against  a  stolid  and 
trained  intellectual  indifference.  They  are  at  work 
now  on  an  impossible  task.  The  opposition  is 
institutional.  The  way  out  is  a  fundamental  re- 
construction of  methods  and  policy. 

1.  Let  the  supreme  emphasis  of  the  volun- 
tary religious  forces  be  placed  on  the  family  life. 
The  forward  movement  with  consequences  is  with 
childhood  in  the  home. 

2.  The  public  schools  may  undertake  to  teach 
the   sacred   cleanliness   of   the   procreative   foun- 
tains, and,  by  interpretation  of  nature's  intent, 
help  the  young  life  to  self-mastery — especially  in 
that  time  when  the  mystic  breezes  begin  to  blow 
from  out  the  cosmic  seas  in  the  time  of  adolescence. 
Execute  the  teaching  in  municipal  administrations 
and  in  the  divorce  courts. 

3.  Put  the  old-time  household  moralities  into 

381 


A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  RELIGION. 

the  common  schools,  and  teach  them  openly  in 
all  the  grades — and  flavor  them  with  a  little  salt 
of  Spartan  austerity. 

4.  Teach  in  all  schools  the  Divine  imma- 
nence, and  let  the  child  go  out  with  a  reverent 
sense  of  God's  being.  Teach — do  not  prove — 
only  sharp-cut  an  instinct  about  the  edges. 

The  Churches  in  America  do  not  ask  favors  or 
seek  special  privileges,  with  the  very  life  of  the 
nation  in  view;  they  demand  simply  institutional 
justice — in  other  words,  fair  play. 


332 


INDEX. 


A 

Syrians. 

Africans,  273. 

South  Sea  Islanders. 

American  nation,  320. 

Egyptians. 

Animal  intelligence,  91. 

Germans. 

Analogy,  193. 
Anaxagoras,  67. 

Indians. 
Hebrews. 

Analysis,  27. 
Armstrong,  70. 

Burroughs,  149. 
Buddha,  159. 

Arnold   59. 

Butler,  193. 

Arabian  Nights,  284. 

Byram,  60. 

Atom,  48. 

Byron,  143. 

Aztecs,  274. 

Bird  intelligence,  100. 

c 

B 

Causation,  80. 

Balfour,  46. 

Carpenter,  77. 

Bascom,  132. 

Caesalpino,  110. 

Barker,  132. 

Carus,  60. 

Beethoven,  41. 

Cells- 

Seattle,  45. 

resistance,  86. 

Berkeley,  45,  65. 

basis  of  life,  113. 

Bergson,  65. 
Beruheimer,  86. 

individuality,  115. 
energy,  117. 

Benson,  145. 

definition,  118. 

Beaulieu,  326. 

growth,  118. 

Belief,  24. 

heredity,  132. 

Bigelow,  58. 

potency,  194. 

Binet,  86,  121. 

Chromosomes,  117. 

Bible- 

Chemistry,  51. 

secretarial,  286.' 

Character,  84. 

books,  288. 

a  survival,  161. 

expansion  of,  289. 

in  old  age,  201. 

interpretation,  293. 
fundamental  document,  297. 

Christ— 
access  to  an  underland  of  power,  269. 

Blood- 

crucifixion,  278,  279,  280. 

sight  of,  230. 

Church- 

covenanting,  275. 

definition,  312. 

substitute,  276. 

American  theory  of,  316. 

symbol,  276. 

Latin,  315. 

life-offering,  277. 

ascendency  of,  317. 

Bradley,  69. 

European,  317. 

Brain  and  mind,  96. 

crisis,  311. 

Brierly,  147. 

Protestant,  318. 

Bowne,  61,  70. 

Catholic,  327. 

Booth,  246. 

self-support,  327. 

Brotherhoods,  270. 

and  citizenship,  328. 

Arabians. 

and  home  life,  328. 

Scythians. 

social  ills,  328. 

Cataline  conspirators. 

education,  328. 

Dyaks. 

Civilization,  322. 

Tahitans. 

Connectedness,  14. 

Burmans. 

Christian  Science,  30. 

333 


INDEX. 


Cocker,  60,  151,  263. 
Conrad,  168. 
Conflict,  171. 
Collectivism,  174. 
Conservation,  230. 
Colonial  units,  232. 
Continuity,  140. 
Consciousness,  67. 

and  death,  204. 

value  of,  205. 
Constit  utions — 

Growth  of,  294. 

American,  299. 

English,  297. 
Crookes,  70. 
Creation — continuous,  81. 

D 

Darwin,  78,  129,  135,  137. 
Drummond,  106,  112,  120,  173. 
Darwin,  Jr.,  110. 
Determinism,  122. 
Dante's  Inferno,  283. 
Decalogue,  226. 
Decrepitude— so-called,  202. 
Delbeauf,  200. 
Death— 

the  sense  test,  183. 

definition  of,  192. 

physical  decay,  206. 
Discontinuity,  31. 
Divine  unity,  254. 
Doubt,  25. 

Downey,  59,  151,  176. 
Dumonteil,  101. 

E 

Education  in  America,  54. 

Eimer,  136. 

Emerson,  143. 

Endlessness  of  influence,  180. 

Erskine,  73. 

Experience — posits  of,  200. 

Equity  courts,  298. 

Evolution,  217. 


Patios,  102. 

Family  life,  329. 

Fertilization,  124. 

Feeling,  20. 

First  cause,  44,  82. 

Fichte,  45. 

Fiske,  57. 

Fitchett,  58. 

ForeL  104. 

Freedom,  241. 

Fraternity  and  religion,  240. 

Free  will  and  heredity,  126,  227. 


Genetic  investments,  29. 

Geniuses,  35. 

Genesis,  284. 

Gilder,  144. 

Goeble,  115. 

Grosscup,  57. 

God— 

the  sense  of,  44. 

the  idea  of,  152. 

righteous,  265. 

Fatherhood  of,  269. 

H 

Haeckel,  52,  149. 
Harrison,  185. 
Henslow,  120. 
Heredity,  125,  129,  188. 
Henle,  136. 
Howells,  145. 
Hoffding,  57,  59,  63. 
Hugo,  42. 
Huxley,  157,  326. 
Hypothesis,  27. 
Hyslop,  59. 
Hobbes,  68. 


Idealism,  41, 
Idolatry,  71,  252. 
Ideas,  88. 
Illingworth,  69. 
Impregnation,  114. 
Immanence,  62. 
Intelligence,  63,  76. 
Indians,  73. 
Intuitions,  41. 
Insect  intelligence,  103. 

near-nation,  153. 

ntellect — maturity  of,  199. 

nstinct — swarming,  220. 

ndividualism,  235,  242. 

ntelligence — collective,  243. 
Institutional  expressions,  310. 
Infusoria,  121. 


Japan,  9,3. 
James,  36,  60,  70. 
Johnson,  45,  79. 
Jowett,  59. 

E 

Knowledge,  a  cosmic  impulse,  12. 
partial  justi  Jed,  15. 
relativity,  16. 
by  immediacy,  29. 
and  coexistence,  67. 


334 


INDEX. 


Kelley,  14T. 

Milne,  149. 

Kant,  30,  68. 

Mill,  157. 

Kuhns,  58. 

Monotheism,  263. 

Kipling,  284. 

Mohammed,  148,  255. 

Muller,  251. 

L 

Munsterberg,  70. 

Laboratory  methods,  09. 

Langley,  53. 
Latimer,  60. 

Mind,  132,  151. 
its  methods,  17. 
in  sleep,  36. 

Ladd,  62-64. 

hidden  power,  37. 

Leibault,  85. 

undercurrents,  38. 

Leibniz,  50. 

objective,  79. 

Labor  guilds,  244. 

unity,  80,  209. 

Language,  293-295. 

without  a  brain,  53. 
administrative,  77. 

a  transcendance,  49. 
a  mind  potency,  80. 
legislators,  226. 

a  body  builder,  83. 
and  mechanism,  84. 
and  healing,  91. 

moral  —  resistless,  227. 
precedes  the  statute,  294. 
spirit  nature  of,  299. 
a  social  exhuding,  300. 
comes  up  out  of  the  mass,  300. 
Lincoln,  35. 

suggestion,  85. 
functions  the  brain,  88. 
and  intuitions,  134. 
primitive,  248. 
subconscious,  32. 
unfathomable,  197. 

Livingstone,  254. 

Literature  is  life,  284. 

N 

Love  —  the  atonement,  281. 
Longfellow,  21. 

Nazarene,  41. 
Naudin,  58. 

Locke,  17,  68. 

Nageli,  130,  136. 

Luther,  518. 

Naturalism,  179. 

Life  — 

Npwpnmh    fil 

manufacture  of,  118. 

Netter,  108. 

is  it  illogical?  155. 
surrender  of,  172. 

Norden,  Van,  69. 
Nogi,  260. 

the  stream  of,  190. 

redundancies,  194. 
overlap  of  units,  232. 

greatest  teacher,  142. 
ethic  of,  154,  174. 

is  it  rational?  154. 

M 

strife  in,  158. 

Mabie,  151. 

intent,  162. 

Mathew,  69. 

is  it  cruel?  168. 

Man  — 

a  physical  survival,  217. 

0 

and  social  movements,  224. 
an  underplay,  219. 
Eastern,  257. 
Western,  262. 
Matter- 
reality  of,  44. 

Orientation,  102. 
Organization,  314. 
Oriental  — 
provincialisms,  258. 
social  centers,  258. 
caste,  258. 

dead,  53,  78. 
transmissive,  68. 
its  endowments,  78. 

religions,  259. 
reincarnations,  260. 

limitations,  89. 

spirit  bearing,  189. 

P 

McConnell,  58,  70,  120. 

Patriotism,  33,  172,  261. 

Memory,  43. 

Packard,  104. 

Mesmerism,  93. 

Pantheism,  152. 

Mimicry,  93. 

Palmer,  157. 

Mocro-organisms,  120. 

Paul,  255. 

335 


INDEX. 


Pain- 
reflex  value  of,  162. 

overplus  of,  163. 

dea'nition,  163. 

and  culture,  164. 

a  challenge,  166. 
Peary,  149. 
Pearson,  69. 
Permanence,  181. 
Personality,  183,  195,  209. 
Pfeffer,  117. 
Plant  life,  109. 
Philosophy — 

its  province,  28. 

its  demand,  136. 
Psychic  initiative,  138. 

spontaneities,  137,  141. 
Plant  intelligence,  109. 
Progress — 

social,  186. 

inherent,  227. 
Preacher,  312. 
Protoplasm,  119. 
Pragmatism,  15,  36,  180. 
Prenatal  life,  100. 
Public  schools,  325. 


Quayle,  168. 


Q 


Reid,  45-54. 
Resignation.  158. 
Responsibility,  176-178. 
Religious  impulse,  246. 
Redemption,  philosophic,  268. 
Reality,  44,  81.  135. 
Reflection,  17. 
Reason — 

its  limits,  21. 

and  intuition,  92. 
Rk,  69. 
Rodin,  150. 
Roman  law,  297. 
Rhythm,  15. 
Religion — 

origin  in  fear,  250. 

an  evolution,  250. 

unitary  tendencies,  256. 

premier  social  force,  326. 
Revelation,  286. 

and  nature,  290. 

independent  of  criticism,  286. 

a  part  of  the  world's  life,  287. 

not  a  closed  message,  306. 

historic  movement,  303. 

comprehensive,  304. 

new  knowledge,  305. 


never  untrue,  305. 
a  finality,  291. 


Sabatier,  57. 

Santayana,  60. 

Sachs,  116. 

Sciences  not  mindless,  77. 

tests  of  truth,  179. 

results  a  revelation,  308. 

departmental  study,  28. 
Script  will  survive,  289. 

not  inerrant,  289. 

not  dogmatic,  303. 

a  growing  content,  307. 
Sex  equilibrium,  122. 
Self-giving,  172. 
Self-seeking,  234. 
Shaler,  57. 

Shakespeare,  41,  133. 
Sensation,  17. 
Smallwood,  194. 
Snider,  157. 
Sin,  176. 
Sorrow,  167. 
Spencer,  61,  157,  207. 
Spinoza,  65. 
Spiritualism,  39. 
Space,  14. 

Spontaneity,  133,  191. 
Social  instinct,  218. 
Socialism,  235-237. 
Spirit  being,  55. 

manifest,  61. 

Co-ordinated,  64. 

and  phenomena,  65. 

and  mind,  76. 

and  law  of  waste,  214. 
Struggle,  160. 
Stevenson,  34,  145. 
Storms,  58. 
Survivals,  228. 
Symbols — 

mathematics,  52. 

fraternal,  75. 

idols,  71. 


Tennyson,  184. 

Theater,  311. 

Thoreau,  146. 

Thausies,  103. 

Time,  14. 

Truth- 
mandatory,  11. 
elemental,  30. 
unity  of,  180. 


336 


INDEX. 

U  Waste- 
Unconditioned,  17.  law  of,  209. 
Unity  and  relatedness,  63.  social  effects,  210. 
Universe, —  Wenley,  70. 
intelligible,  79.  Weisman,  130. 
growing,  82.  Wealth — personal,  236. 
has  an  ethic,  177.  Whately,  35. 
vibrant,  208.  Whitman,  143. 
conception  of,  253.  Winchell,  57. 

Wordsworth,  146. 

w  Winslow,  302. 

Ward,  57,  110.  Wo<>d' 10L 
Wallace,  135. 


A     000  040  366     7 


